Wikipedia

Ig Nobel Prize

The Ig Nobel Prize (/ˌɪɡ noʊˈbɛl/), also known as the Ig Nobels or simply the Igs, is a satirical prize awarded annually since 1991 to promote public engagement with scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". The award parodies the Nobel Prize and is named after Ignatius Nobel, a fictional cousin of the Nobel Prize's founder, Alfred Nobel. The name is also a pun on the word ignoble. Most awards are for genuine scientific achievements with an unorthodox, obvious or humorous slant, while other awards are given ironically to various politicians, media figures, or promoters of pseudoscience.

Ig Nobel Prize
A statue of a person holding his hand to his chin in thought, lying down next to the pedestal where the status is meant to stand
"The Stinker", mascot of the Ig Nobel Prize
Awarded forResearch that "first makes people laugh, then makes them think"
Country
Presented byAnnals of Improbable Research
RewardA 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknote (US$0.04)
First award3 October 1991; 34 years ago (1991-10-03)
Websiteimprobable.com

Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded in 10 categories each year, presented by Nobel laureates in a ceremony that was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard University until 2026, when the ceremony was moved to Zurich, Switzerland, due to safety concerns about international visitors entering the United States. The winners deliver 60-second acceptance speeches, and receive a low-quality home-made prize and a monetary award of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (US$0.04).

The ceremony contains a number of whimsical events and running jokes, including throwing paper planes onto the stage, competing to win a date with a Nobel laureate, and the "24/7" lectures where winners summarize their research in 24 seconds, then in seven words. An eight-year-old girl interrupts speakers if they go on too long, repeatedly saying "Please stop. I'm bored."

History

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The 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in biology was awarded to Tomoki Kojima and other researchers for demonstrating that painting cows with black and white stripes can prevent biting flies biting them without using more pesticide.[1]

The Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, then editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results and later co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR),[2] who has been the master of ceremonies at all awards.[3] The prize is named after the fictional Ignatius Nobel, inventor of the soda pop and distant cousin of Alfred Nobel, who founded the Nobel Prize, which the Ig Nobels parody.[4][5] The name is also a pun on the word ignoble.[6] Awards were presented for discoveries "that cannot or should not be reproduced".[7]

The ceremony originally took place in a lecture hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but moved in 1995 to the Sanders Theater at Harvard University. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held fully online from 2020 to 2023, returning to MIT in September 2024.[8] In March 2026, the AIR announced that the 2026 awards ceremony would be held on 3 September in Zurich, Switzerland, and hosted by the University of Zurich and ETH Domain, with Abrahams saying that the United States had become "unsafe" for guests.[9][3]

Sir Andre Geim, who had been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog by magnetism, was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 for his work with the electromagnetic properties of graphene. He is the only individual, as of 2026, to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel.[10][a]

Awards

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The aim of the awards, according to Abrahams, is to promote public engagement with science,[2] attempting to appeal to people who "think it's scary, or impossible to understand, or just plain boring".[12] Ten prizes are awarded in categories which vary each year, to research which "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Categories often include the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economics, and peace, but occasionally other fields such as engineering, mathematics, neuroscience, or veterinary medicine.[13] Awards can be given posthumously.[1]

The Ig Nobel Prizes recognize genuine achievements, with the exception of three prizes awarded in the first year to fictitious scientists Josiah S. Carberry, Paul DeFanti, and Thomas Kyle (for his discovery of Administratium).[14] Some awards are given ironically as criticism of research,[14] such as in 2020 when the medical education prize was awarded to various world leaders after they had been criticized for understating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.[15][16] Other prizes have been awarded to researchers of pseudoscience, such as homeopathy.[17]

The winners are chosen by the Ig Nobel board of governors,[18] who receive over 9,000 nominations each year, roughly 10–20% of which are self-nominations.[19] Winners are contacted before being announced to allow them to decline the award, though few do.[18]

Ceremony

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Winners are awarded a 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknote.

The ceremony takes place annually in September, a few weeks before the announcement of the year's Nobel Prize winners.[13][20] The ceremony opens with the "welcome, welcome" speech, which consists of two words: "welcome, welcome".[21]

Winners give a 60-second acceptance speech.[22] An eight-year-old girl, nicknamed Miss Sweetie Poo, stands nearby and repeatedly says "Please stop. I'm bored" if speakers go on too long.[23][24] The ceremony also includes "24/7" speeches, where winners first summarize their work in 24 seconds, then in seven words.[25] The prizes are presented by Nobel laureates,[23] with the winners receiving a prize "made of cheap materials that are prone to disintegrate",[14] and a solitary banknote for the amount of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars[26] (US$0.04,[27] but the banknote is worth more as a collector's item[28]).

Throwing paper planes onto the stage is a long-standing tradition. Until his death in 2018, Professor Roy J. Glauber swept the stage clean of airplanes as the official "Keeper of the Broom". Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards because he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.[13][29] Each ceremony also contains a contest where audience members can win a date with a Nobel laureate, as well as a unique event for the year.[23] At the 1997 ceremonies, a team from the Institute for Cryogenic Sex Research distributed a pamphlet titled "Safe Sex at Four Kelvin";[12] the ceremony in 2000 included a debate to determine the most intelligent person, where two contestants spoke at the same time for 30 seconds.[21]

The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard–Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard–Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.[30] It traditionally closes with the words: "If you didn't win a prize—and especially if you did—better luck next year!"[31]

Reception and legacy

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The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Michael Berry for the magnetic levitation of a live frog. Geim was awarded an actual Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.[10]

The Ig Nobel Prize has received some criticism from scientists. Robert May, who at the time was the chief scientific adviser for the UK, requested that British scientists be excluded from the prize, worried that it would harm their career prospects.[32] As the prize has become more well-known, the scientific community have been more appreciative of it, with some research getting more attention due to winning.[17] At the 2025 ceremony, Tomoki Kojima, one of the winners of the year's biology prize, said that the award "serves as motivation for us to continue striving for excellence".[6]

A September 2009 article in The National titled "A noble side to Ig Nobels" said that, although the prize is often awarded to research of "trivial" questions, history shows that trivial research sometimes leads to important breakthroughs.[33] In 2006, a study showing that mosquitoes that can carry malaria are attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and the smell of human feet earned the Ig Nobel Prize in biology. As a result of these findings, traps baited with this cheese have been used to combat the malaria epidemic in Africa.[14] Before receiving the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on graphene, Andre Geim shared the physics Ig Nobel in 2000 with Michael Berry for the magnetic levitation of a frog, which by 2022 was reportedly part of the inspiration for China's lunar gravity research facility.[34][35]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ↑ In January 2026, María Corina Machado, the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, gave her Nobel medal to Donald Trump, a co-recipient of the 2020 Ig Nobel Prize in Medical Education, but The Nobel Prize Committee clarified that the prize "cannot be revoked, shared or transferred".[11]

References

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  1. 1 2 "Zebra cows and Teflon food make Ig Nobel prize winners". bbc.com. September 19, 2025. Retrieved September 20, 2025.
  2. 1 2 Koester, Vera (September 19, 2025). "2025 Ig Nobel Prize Winners". ChemistryViews. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  3. 1 2 Richter, Hannah (March 11, 2026). "After 35 years, Ig Nobel ceremony to leave the U.S." Science. Retrieved April 20, 2026.
  4. ↑ Gilchrist, Alice (October 4, 1991). "Ig Nobel prizes debut". The Tech. Vol. 111, no. 40. Archived from the original on December 30, 2008. Retrieved April 13, 2026.
  5. ↑ Maugh, Thomas H. (October 5, 1991). "Ig Nobel Prizes Go to Those Likely to Be Overlooked : Lampoon: MIT researchers create the new series of awards, named after the 'inventor of soda pop.' Among the first winners are Vice President Dan Quayle and imprisoned junk-bond king Michael Milken". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  6. 1 2 "Ig Nobel Prize winners include zebra cows and pizza-loving lizards". BBC Newsround. September 19, 2025. Retrieved April 14, 2026.
  7. ↑ Ferguson, Cassie (October 9, 1998). "Bear Armor and Frisky Clams Win Ig Nobels". Science. Retrieved April 13, 2026.
  8. ↑ Hir, Vivian (September 19, 2024). "The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony returns to MIT for the first time in 20 years". The Tech. Archived from the original on October 8, 2024. Retrieved April 13, 2026.
  9. ↑ "Ig Nobel prizes moving to Europe because US 'unsafe' to visit". France 24. March 10, 2026. Retrieved March 10, 2026.
  10. 1 2 Overbye, Dennis (October 5, 2010). "Physics Nobel Honors Work on Ultra-Thin Carbon". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 24, 2014. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Nobel Institute rejects María Corina Machado's offer to share peace prize with Trump". The Guardian. January 11, 2026. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 11, 2026.
  12. 1 2 Kirsner, Scott (October 10, 1997). "A Gala Night for Weird Science". Wired. Retrieved April 17, 2026.
  13. 1 2 3 Sabharwal, D. P. (March 2016). "Awards for unconventional acts of inverted genius people". alive. No. 401. pp. 72–77. ISSN 0971-0639.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Battaglia, Gina (November 10, 2015). "In Pursuit of (Ig) Nobility: The Ig Nobel Prize | Bio-Radiations". Retrieved April 14, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Narcissist eyebrows, 'poop knives' win Ig Nobels". Deutsche Welle. September 18, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  16. ↑ "PM Narendra Modi awarded Ig Nobel Prize 2020 for medical education: Here's what it means". Network18 Group. September 20, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  17. 1 2 "The Dignity of the Ig Nobels". sciencehistory.org. Science History Institute. October 14, 2025. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  18. 1 2 "Ig Nobels honour weird science". Al Jazeera. October 5, 2005. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  19. ↑ Duboust, Oceane (September 18, 2023). "From dead spider robots to licking rocks: Ig Nobel Prize 2023 celebrates the quirky side of science". Euronews. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  20. ↑ "From Zebra cows to pizza-eating lizards, the winners of the Ig Nobel are…". Firstpost. September 19, 2025. Archived from the original on September 23, 2025. Retrieved April 15, 2026.
  21. 1 2 Powell, Alvin (October 12, 2000). "Ig Nobels flush out the world's top brains :Bad science gets good reputation at 10th annual prize ceremony". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved April 15, 2026.
  22. ↑ "Monell Center Researchers Received a 2025 Ig Nobel Prize for their Landmark Flavor Study | Newswise". www.newswise.com. September 18, 2025. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  23. 1 2 3 "The world's wackiest scientific research". Today. September 28, 2003. Retrieved May 8, 2026.
  24. ↑ Ouellette, Jennifer (September 13, 2018). "Here are your 2018 Ig Nobel Prize winners". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 8, 2026.
  25. ↑ Ouellette, Jennifer (September 18, 2025). "Meet the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners". Ars Technica. Retrieved April 15, 2026.
  26. ↑ Davis, Nicola (September 14, 2023). "Reanimated spiders and smart toilets triumph at Ig Nobel prizes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on September 15, 2023. Retrieved September 13, 2024.
  27. ↑ "Zimbabwe offers new exchange rate: $1 for 35,000,000,000,000,000 old dollars". The Guardian. June 12, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2026.
  28. ↑ Frisby, Dominic (May 14, 2016). "Zimbabwe's trillion-dollar note: from worthless paper to hot investment". the Guardian.
  29. ↑ Reuell, Peter (January 25, 2019). "Roy Glauber, Nobel laureate and Harvard physics professor, dies at 93". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  30. ↑ Lawler, Andrew (October 3, 2002). "Not-so-Nobel Laureates". Science. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
  31. ↑ Jacobs, Phie (September 14, 2023). Ig Nobel Prizes honor zombie spiders, rock-licking scientists, and a clever commode (Report). doi:10.1126/science.adk8631. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
  32. ↑ Nicholson, David (September 30, 1999). "Here come the prize idiots". The Guardian. Retrieved April 19, 2026.
  33. ↑ Matthews, Robert (September 27, 2009). "A Noble Side to Ig Nobels". The National. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
  34. ↑ "China building "Artificial Moon" that simulates low gravity with magnets". Futurism.com. Recurrent Ventures. January 12, 2022. Archived from the original on June 14, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2022. the facility was partly inspired by previous research conducted by Russian physicist Andrew Geim in which he floated a frog with a magnet. The experiment earned Geim the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, a satirical award given to unusual scientific research. It's cool that a quirky experiment involving floating a frog could lead to something approaching an honest-to-God antigravity chamber.
  35. ↑ Stephen Chen (January 12, 2022). "China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2022. It is said to be the first of its kind and could play a key role in the country's future lunar missions. Landscape is supported by a magnetic field and was inspired by experiments to levitate a frog.
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