Ig Nobels to honour strange science

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news6978.html

What is clear is that Vonnegut's groundbreaking research may have languished in undeserved obscurity but for Marc Abrahams, founder of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes for scientific achievement that "cannot or should not be reproduced."

A prestigious gathering of genuine Nobel laureates will help present the awards at the 15th Ig Nobel ceremony to be held Thursday amid pomp, mayhem and paper planes at Harvard University.

Along with Vonnegut, previous winners of the increasingly-prized Igs include authors of landmark reports on the impact of country music on suicide, the use of magnets to levitate frogs, and the effect of beer, garlic and soured cream on the appetite of leeches..........

snip..................

There is also an Ig Nobel Peace Prize, won last year by Daisuke Inoue, the Japanese inventor of karaoke who was cited for "providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."

[GAspnes]

1. funny outgrowth of

"The Journal of Irreproducible Results". I recall picking up my Dad's copy when I was young and just giggling when I read this:

* 10 monologs = 5 dialogues
* 5 dialogues = 1 decalogue
* 2 monograms = 1 diagram
* 8 nickels = 2 paradigms
* 10^-6 phones = 1 microphone
* 10⁶ phones = 1 megaphone
* 10^-2 mental = 1 centimental
* 10^-1 mate = 1 decimate
* 10¹² bulls = 1 terabull
* 10^-12 boos = 1 picoboo
* 10^-15 bismol = 1 femtobismol

And this classic article...

http://www.jir.com/geographic.html

PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE MUST BE IMMEDIATELY STOPPED AT ALL COSTS! This beautiful, educational, erudite, and thoroughly appreciated publication is the heretofore unrecognized instrument of doom which must be erased if we as a country or continent will survive. It is NOT TOO LATE if this warning is heeded!

According to current subscription figures, more than 6,869,797 issues of the National Geographic magazine are sent to subscribers monthly throughout the world. However, it would be safe to say that the bulk of these magazines reach subscribers in the United States and Canada, and it is, and never has been, thrown away! It is saved like a monthly edition of the Bible. The magazine has been published for over 141 years continuously, and countless millions if not billions of copies have been innocently yet relentlessly accumulating in basements, attics, garages, public and private institutions of learning, the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Good Will, and Salvation Army stores, and heaven knows where else. Never discarded, always saved. No recycling, just the horrible and relentless accumulation of this static vehicle of our doom!

National Geographic averages approximately 2 pounds per issue. Since no copies have been discarded or destroyed since the beginning of publication, it can be readily seen that the accumulated aggregate weight is a figure that not only boggles the mind, but is imminently approaching the disaster point. That point will be the time at which the geologic substructure of the country can no longer support the incredible load, and subsidence will occur. Gradually at first, but then relentlessly accelerating as rock formations are compressed, become plastic and begin to flow, great faults will appear.

[NNadir]

2. I disagree. I believe that the National Geographic magazine...

...accumulation is an excellent program for sequestering carbon.

Huge deposits of National Geographic may also provide an energy source for future generations.

[GAspnes]

3. fusion, perhaps

...once we figure out how to control the implosion of the National Geographic Stack.