• The Winners
• The Ceremony (September 20)
• Live Internet Broadcast
• Ceremony Details and Who's Who
• If you are coming to Sanders Theatre...
• IgBill (booklet), and Spiffy Poster
• Ig Informal Lectures (September 22)
• Previous years
• Press contacts

The 2012 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday, September 20, 7:30 pm*
Sanders Theater, Harvard University
(twitter: #IgNobel)

*Pre-ceremony concert begins at 7:10 pm (US Eastern Time). Internet broadcast begins at 7:15 pm. The ceremony proper begins at 7:30 pm.

The 22nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will introduce ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. The winners travel to the ceremony, at their own expense, from several continents. The Prizes are handed to them by a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, assisted by a large number of assorted Ig personnel, all before a perpetually standing-room only audience. The ceremony will include many other delights—see details below. (For the latest Ig Nobel news, see the blog.)

Downloadable Booklet
Click here or on the image at right to download your very own PDF copy of the IgBill (the guidebook for the ceremony), identical to the ones that will be distributed the night of the ceremony.

FIGS (Friends of the Ig) — Generous supporters of the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, who are helping the world laugh then think:

The ceremony will be broadcast live via YouTube.
(If you want to test your connection, try watching any of the videos on our YouTube channel.)

WHEN: The broadcast begins at 7:15 pm (US Eastern Time). The ceremony itself begins at 7:30. We expect it to run between 90 minutes and an hour.

WHERE: The webcast is available below. Enjoy!

PARTIES: There will be broadcast-watching parties around the world, including a grand, middle-of-the-night event at a theater in Leiden, The Netherlands (logo at right), and parties in Paris, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Feel free to contact us about your party so that we can help publicize it.

The theme of this year's ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: THE UNIVERSE.

In addition to the awarding of the 2012 Ig Nobel Prizes, the ceremony will include a variety of momentously inconsequential events. Among them:

• Several Nobel laureates will physically hand the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new winners:
  • Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986)
  • Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993)
  • Eric Maskin (economics, 2007)
  • Roy Glauber (physics, 2005)
  • and perhaps others to be announced
• Pre-Pre-ceremony concert (at 6:45 pm, in the lobby) by the Boston Squeezebox Ensemble
• Pre-ceremony mini-concert (at 7:10 pm, in the theater) by "KEROMIN", the Amazing FROGS, making their American debut
• Two grand Paper Airplane Deluges, one at ceremony's beginning, the other at the midpoint
• Keynote Address by Robert Kirshner
• The 24/7 Lectures, in which several of the world's top thinkers will each explain her or his subject twice:
  FIRST: a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS*
  AND THEN: a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS
  • Roy Glauber (Nobel laureate in physics, 2005): The Universe
  • Erika Ebbel Angle (Science from Scientists founder, Miss Massachusetts 2004): Mass Spectrometry
  • Rich Roberts (Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, 1993): Arsenic-based Life
  • Dr. Elena Bodnar (Ig Nobel Prize winner in public health, 2009): Electro-muscular Incapacitation
• World premiere of a brand new mini-opera: "The Intelligent Designer and The Universe" starring Maria Ferrante, Ben Sears, Roberta Gilbert, and Daniel Rosenberg, with pianist Patrick Yacono and accordionist Thomas Michel, MD, PhD. Conducted & stage directed by David Stockton.
  
• Returning Ig Nobel Prize winners:
  • Dr. Elena Bodnar (invention of an emergency bra that can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks)
  • Mahadevan (mathematico-physics analysis of how sheets get wrinkled)
  • Dr. Richard Gustafson (failure of self-administered automobile-engine-supplied-electric-shock treatment for rattlesnake envenomation resulting from patient's pet rattlesnake biting the patient on the lip)
  • Dr. Francis Fesmire (digital rectal massage as a cure for intractable hiccups)
  • Dr. Deborah Anderson (the effect of Coca-Cola on sperm motility)
  • Don Featherstone (creator of the plastic pink flamingo)
  • Dan Meyer (the medical effects of swordswallowing)
  • and perhaps others
• Ceremonial band music by Nicholas Carstoiu and The Ig Leaves
• Salutes to the Audience Delegations
• The Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest
• Karen Hopkin, creator of the Studmuffins of Science Calendar
• Gala Introduction of the Audience Delegations
• All speeches will be brief, and thus especially delightful, with assistance from 8-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo.
• The Minordomos will make most things run smoothly on stage.
• The V-Chip Monitor, Prominent New York Attorney William J. Maloney, will guard against offensive words, sounds, thoughts, or imaginings.
• The Traditional "Welcome, Welcome" Speech
• The Traditional "Goodbye, Goodbye" Speech
• Other wondrous things

* Time limits to be enforced by Mr. John Barrett, the Ig Nobel Referee

Who's Who: Click on the photo array to see many of the ceremony organizers and participants:

WHERE: If you are walking, driving, T-ing, biking, or running to Sanders Theatre, you may want some directions. Here are: (1) a map and directions; and (2) the secret of how to pahk your cah near Hahvud Yahd.

WHAT TO WEAR: We suggest you wear clothing, It's good to wear clothing that is, like you, colorful. People like yourself (or in some cases, very unlike yourself) in distant places, watching the broadcast and seeing occasional glimpses of the Sanders Theatre audience, will thrill to the panoply of colors, styles, and improbable accoutrements. This is the night to unearth your old wedding gown, uniform, suit of armor, labcoat or longjohns.

WHAT TO BRING: Paper, paper, paper. Paper to make into paper airplanes. Additional paper to give to those around you who may have forgotten to bring their own paper, and who as a consequence of their own neglect are forlornly wishing they could join in the thrill and intellectual romance of making and throwing paper airplanes. SAFETY FIRST, please! Paper airplanes should be thrown at the safety-equipment-laden individual onstage who is the Designated Paper Airplane Target. NOTE: There will be two (2) designated Paper Airplane Deluge periods, one at the very start of the ceremony, the other at the ceremony's midpoint.

OFFICIAL DELEGATIONS: If you have five (5) or more tickets to the Ig Nobel ceremony, your group can choose to be an Official Audience Delegation, and thus be officially celebrated during the event. To register as a Delegation, first obtain tickets from the Harvard Box Office. Then register with Grand Panjandrum of the Delegations Louise Sacco: (+1) 781-444-6757. DEADLINE: The deadline for registering is Friday, September 14.

The Ig Informal Lectures
Saturday, Sep 22, 2012, 1:00 pm.
MIT, Building 10, room 250, 77 Massachusetts Ave.
(twitter: #IgNobel)

A half-afternoon of improbably funny, informative, informal, brief public lectures and demonstrations:

• The new Ig Nobel Prize winners will attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it
• Select past winners will tell us about some of their new adventures
• Special musical performance by "KEROMIN", the Amazing FROGS
• Everyone will be available for you to talk with, both before and after the lectures

Press Contacts:

Annals of Improbable Research editor Marc Abrahams, (+1) 617-491-4437
Improbable facilitator Katherine Meusey, (+1) 415-609-0837
Annals of Improbable Research European Bureau Chief Kees Moeliker (Rotterdam, The Netherlands, (+31) 6 53778445

Special Thanks To...

All Ig Nobel Prizes activities are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association (HRSFA), the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students (SPS), and the Harvard Computer Society.