The Ig Nobel Prize is a satiric 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." In some formulations, it is extended to "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time."
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.
Social Text is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception by an independent editorial collective in 1979, Social Text has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gender, sexuality, race, and the environment. Each issue covers subjects in the debates around feminism, Marxism, neoliberalism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, queer theory, and popular culture. The journal has since been run by different collectives over the years, mostly based at New York City universities. It has maintained an avowedly progressive political orientation and scholarship over these years, if also a less Marxist one. Since 1992, it is published by Duke University Press.
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.
ISO 3103 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization, specifying a standardized method for brewing tea, possibly sampled by the standardized methods described in ISO 1839. It was originally laid down in 1980 as BS 6008:1980 by the British Standards Institution, and a revision was published in December, 2019 as ISO/NP 3103. It was produced by ISO Technical Committee 34, Sub-Committee 8 (Tea).
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 is a nonprofit professional society with the mission to advance scientific research and knowledge, support scientific literacy, and promote science-based solutions to global challenges. Founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History, it is the fourth-oldest scientific society in the United States. The academy has more than 20,000 members in 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.
