The Ig Nobel Prize is a satirical prize awarded annually since 1991 to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name of the award is a pun on the Nobel Prize, which it parodies, and on the word "ignoble".
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.
Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.".
Josiah Stinkney Carberry is a fictional professor, created as a joke in 1929. He is said to still teach at Brown University, and to be known for his work in "psychoceramics", the supposed study of "cracked pots".
Corentin Louis Kervran was a French scientist. Kervran was born in Quimper, Finistère (Brittany), and received a degree as an engineer in 1925. In World War II he was part of the French Resistance.
Eliyahu Rips was an Israeli mathematician of Latvian origin known for his research in geometric group theory. He became known to the general public following his co-authoring a paper on what is popularly known as Bible code, the supposed coded messaging in the Hebrew text of the Torah.
The Journal of Irreproducible Results is a magazine of science humor. It was established in Israel in 1955 by virologist Alexander Kohn and physicist Harry J. Lipkin, who wanted a humor magazine about science, for scientists. It contains a mix of jokes, satire of scientific practice, science cartoons, and discussion of funny but real research.
Marc Abrahams is the editor and co-founder of Annals of Improbable Research, and the originator and master of ceremonies of the annual Ig Nobel Prize celebration. He was formerly editor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Pink plastic flamingos are a common lawn ornament in the United States.
Parody science, sometimes called spoof science, is the act of mocking science in a satirical way. Science can be parodied for a purpose, ranging from social commentary and making political points, to humor for its own sake.
The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), originally founded as the Lyceum of Natural History in January 1817, is a prestigious nonprofit professional society that plays a vital role in advancing global scientific research and knowledge. As the fourth-oldest scientific society in the United States, the academy has made significant contributions to the scientific community for over two centuries. Today, it boasts a diverse membership of over 20,000 individuals from 100 countries.
Robert A. J. Matthews, is a British physicist and science writer.
Zooillogix is a zoology blog on the ScienceBlogs network, created and edited by Andrew and Benny Bleiman. The site has been featured on ABC News, in Seed magazine, Mental Floss, FHM, and the Annals of Improbable Research, awarders of the Ig Nobel Prize. The site attracts a diverse readership from notable scientists, such as PZ Myers, to biology students to young children.
Sir Andre Konstantin Geim is a Russian-born Dutch–British physicist working in England in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.
Harry Jeannot Lipkin, also known as Zvi Lipkin, was an Israeli theoretical physicist specializing in nuclear physics and elementary particle physics. He is a recipient of the prestigious Wigner Medal.
John W. Trinkaus was an American business consultant, management and behavior researcher, and engineer. In 2003, Trinkaus was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in literature for "meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him." As a result, his work received mainstream media coverage, with stories appearing in The New York Times, Newsweek, and other media.
Shinola is a defunct American brand of shoe polish. The Shinola Company, founded in Rochester, New York in 1877, as the American Chemical Manufacturing and Mining Company, produced the polish under a sequence of different owners until 1960. "Shinola" was a trade name and trademark for boot polish. The suffix -ola is a popular component of trade names in the United States. It was popular during the first half of the 20th century and entered the American lexicon in the phrase, "You don't know shit from Shinola," meaning to be ignorant. The brand name was acquired by the retail company Shinola in 2011.
David L. Hu is an American mathematician, roboticist, and biologist who is currently an associate professor at the engineering department of Georgia Tech. His research centers on animal behavior and movement, and is noted for its eccentricity.
In modern Russian culture, "British scientists" is a running joke used as an ironic reference to absurd news reports about scientific discoveries: "British scientists managed to establish that..." It has also become a Russian internet meme. A similar joke, "British research", exists in Chinese-speaking countries.
