That’s fitting, I think; Harvard always seemed a little too establishment for the cleverest geek parody show around. Here’s the news from Marc Abrahams, the chief Ig himself:
| On Thursday night, September 12, 2024, the new Ig Nobel Prize winners will be announced — and showered with paper airplanes. They will be honored for achievements that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK. This will be the 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), it celebrates the unusual, honors the imaginative, and spurs interest in science. THE WINNERS: Ten (10) new Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded. The identities of the winners are kept secret until they receive their prize during the ceremony. The winners (some of them individuals, some teams) represent many countries. Genuine Nobel laureates will present the prizes to the winners. A RETURN TO TRADITION: After four pandemic-years (2000-2023) in which the ceremony happened only online, this will resume the tradition of doing it with everyone together in a big room with an audience. SOME HISTORY: The first four Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies (1991-1994) happened at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] in Cambridge Massachusetts. In 1995 the ceremony moved across town, to Harvard University, where it happened every year until the Covid pandemic in 2020 rendered in-theater events impractical. This year, 2024, will see a joyous return to MIT. This year’s ceremony is produced in collaboration with the MIT Press. THEME: The theme of this year’s ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is MURPHY’S LAW (“if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong”). The ceremony will also include: — THE 24/7 LECTURES, in which several of the world’s top thinkers each explains their subject twice — first in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS, and then, clearly, in SEVEN (7) WORDS. — A NEW MINI-OPERA about Murphy’s Law. — Eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo will ensure that all speeches will be kept brief and thus delightful. — PAPER AIRPLANE THROWING. By tradition, the audience makes and throws paper airplanes. This year, in addition to that, people everywhere can send short videos of themselves throwing paper planes; accepted videos will be shown as part of the ceremony. (Details about that: youtube.com/watch?v=31SaBU127YM ) The complete list of all past winners is online at improbable.com/ig/winners |
| |
| THE CEREMONY & WEBCAST: The 2024 ceremony will be webcast. (This will be the 30th straight year — the 1995 Ig Nobel ceremony was one of the very first events ever to be webcast). There will also be a Japanese-language webcast. WHAT: The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremonyWHEN: Thursday, September 12, 2024, 6:00 pm (US eastern time)TICKETS to attend the event at MIT will go on sale August 2, at improbable.com CEREMONY INFO: improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony WEBCAST LOCATION: improbable.com and YouTube SOCIAL MEDIA HASHTAG: #IgNobel RELATED LINK: List of all past Ig Nobel Prize winners: improbable.com/ig/winners/ |
Return to the Concord Monitor