Improbable Research

This is one of Kapil Bhagat’s many unexpected twists, in poster form, on scientists’ names:

The web site explains:

To celebrate the Science Day in India, Mumbai-based graphic designer Kapil Bhagat created a series of minimalist typographic posters featuring the names of famous scientists. Each design cues to an invention, a theory or an achievement that the scientist is known for. For example, Newton drops an “O” to illustrate gravity, a massive “C” in Copernicus reminds us that he figured the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe and placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.

(Thanks to Diana Issidorides for bringing this to our attention.)

Patricia Brennan writes, in Slate:

Why I Study Duck Genitalia

In the past few days, the Internet has been filled with commentary on whether the National Science Foundation should have paid for my study on duck genitalia, and 88.7 percent of respondents to a Fox news online poll agreed that studying duck genitalia is wasteful government spending. The commentary supporting and decrying the study continues to grow. As the lead investigator in this research, I would like to weigh in on the controversy and offer some insights into the process of research funding by the NSF….

(Thanks to Laura Bassett and other investigators for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: A new look back at homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck

Today’s Headline of the Day appears in The Physics arXiv Blog:

Brazil Nut Effect Measured in Lunar and Martian Gravity Conditions

The headline concerns the also-intriguingly-headlined study

“Granular convection and the Brazil nut effect in reduced gravity,” Carsten Güttler [pictured here], Ingo von Borstel, Rainer Schräpler, Jürgen Blum,” arXiv:1304.0569, Apr 2, 2013. The authors report:

“We present laboratory experiments of a vertically vibrated granular medium consisting of 1 mm diameter glass beads with embedded 8 mm diameter intruder glass beads. The experiments were performed in the laboratory as well as in a parabolic flight under reduced-gravity conditions (on Martian and Lunar gravity levels). We measured the mean rise velocity of the large glass beads and present its dependence on the fill height of the sample containers, the excitation acceleration, and the ambient gravity level. We find that the rise velocity scales in the same manner for all three gravity regimes and roughly linearly with gravity.”

(Thanks to investigator Peppe Liberti for bringing it to our attention.)

Emeritus Professor Harry Frankfurt’s  essay-that-turned-into-a-book ‘On Bullshit’ (see Annals of Improbable Research, March | April 2009, volume 15, number 2, p. 25 ) set the stage for further academic research on the subject of BS. And now the field has been explored further with a paper in College English, Vol. 73, No. 3, January 2011, Rhetoric and Bullshit. In which author, Professor James A. Fredal, of the Department of English at The Ohio State university, coins a (possibly) new term – “Taurascatics”.

“The study of bullshit should occupy an important place alongside rhetoric because taurascatics is the antistrophe of rhetorical theory, for both are concerned with the politics of semiotic interaction, and with the frameworks within which that interaction will be produced, interpreted, and judged.”

The professor examines in turn :

• The Bullshitter (the originator of the BS)

• The Bullshit, (the content), and

• The Bullshitee  (the recipient).

And provides examples of the kind of BS one might encounter on a daily basis : e.g.

• “Collateral damage” for civilians accidentally killed in military actions.

• “Rightsizing” for firing people, and

• “Alternative interrogation techniques” for torture.

Also see:

“Deeper into Bullshit.” from the late professor G.A. Cohen, All Souls, Oxford. (Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt. Ed. Sarah Buss and Lee Overton. Cambridge: MIT P, 2002.)

Notes:

• Many thanks to professor Fredal for his assistance.

• The Logo is taken from the header of professor Cohen’s paper.

• The Bullshit Gazette is, sadly, no longer in print

The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) is hosting a big Ig Nobel show Thursday night (4 April), beginning at 6:00 pm.

It’s in the IET Building on Savoy Place (not far from Charing Cross), beginning at 6:oo pm.

The event is FREE (and also, we are told, unfettered) — but you’d best book reservations.

The event will also be WEBCAST LIVE.

Paper airplanes will be on hand, and in the air. The show features:

• Marc Abrahams, organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
• Siobhan Abeyesinghe  (Do hens have friends?)
• Charlotte Burn (Study of canine tail-chasing and human responses to it)
• Dan Schreiber (Improbable things I researched for The Museum of Curiosity and QI)
• Chris McManus, Ig Nobel Prize winner (Scrotal asymmetry in man and ancient sculpture). Professor McManus also will reveal the results of his recent, delicate Danish inquiry.

This is a featured event in the 2013 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK.

BONUS (after the event occurred): recorded video of the event