Every year I eagerly await the beginning of spring, when the winners of my favourite prize are announced. You may be thinking; September, that’s when the Nobel prizes are awarded, right? You would be correct, but that’s not my favourite prize list. My favourite prize list is the Ig Nobel prizes. It’s an annual prize that has been going since the early 1990s, with ten awards for silly and trivial scientific research. They are mostly for funny scientific studies, but sometimes they are a satirical criticism of the winner. Winners are given a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bank note (worth around $0.60 AUD).

The awards are given out by actual Nobel laureates, originally at MIT, but now at Harvard. Despite this, it never takes itself too seriously. Several running gags occur at the event to keep it more interesting than the usual reveal and then a speech from the winner. For example, a little girl (Miss Sweetie Poo), will start complaining loudly about being bored if your speech is too long. There is also the tradition of throwing paper planes onto the stage, with the Keeper of the Broom, previously Nobel award-winning theoretical physicist Roy Glauber, having to keep the stage clear. The 2024 ceremony was Murphy’s Law themed (a previous Ig Nobel winner) and it featured a mini-opera about it. 

It’s hard to explain just what would win an Ig Nobel prize without telling you about some of the winners, so here are some of my favourites. In 1995, three men won the physics prize for figuring out what the optimal composition of a bowl of cereal is to prevent cereal sogginess. In 1996, the higher-ups of two tobacco companies won the medicine prize for testifying to U.S. Congress that nicotine is not addictive. In 1998, Jerald Bain and Kerry Siminoski won the statistics prize for testing the statistical relationship between height, foot size and penis length. The 2004 peace prize was given to the inventor of karaoke. The 2012 neuroscience prize was given to a study that showed you can find brain activity in anything, including a dead salmon. The 2018 nutrition prize was given to James Cole for calculating that a cannibalistic diet is significantly worse than any other meat-based diet. The 2023 mechanical engineering prize was given to the study that figured out how to use dead spiders as mechanical gripping tools. 

Yes, these are all a little bit ridiculous and goofy, but I think that’s what makes them so important and beloved. It isn’t like these studies don’t have wide-reaching importance either. Andre Geim, winner of the 2000 Ig Nobel prize in physics for magnetically levitating a frog, later won the actual Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on graphene. Many of the psychology and neuroscience winners have studies that have had immense effects on the field. A study on mosquitos and cheese has helped prevent the spread of malaria. 

Trivial research isn’t just trivial, it is something someone was interested in enough to devote time and effort into. The Ig Nobels are a celebration of just that, the curiosity and creativity of the human race, as well as a criticism of those who use status and power to undermine the value of scientific investigation and discovery. Why does all research have to be so serious and purposeful? Sometimes the simplest and silliest of investigations yield the most poignant of results. I highly encourage you to watch the digital webcast of the ceremony that streamed on the 14th of September, just like I have. It’s a good reminder to not take yourself too seriously, and to allow yourself to do the things that interest you, even if they don’t seem to have a higher purpose or value.