Tonight, the 23rd First Annual Ig Nobel prize Ceremony is being held at historic Sanders Theater on the campus of Harvard University, from our friends at Improbable Research. Ten laureates will be honored for research and achievements that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK!
Genuine Nobel laureates will physically hand the prizes to the winners. Attending the ceremony will be Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), Eric Maskin (economics, 2007), Frank Wilzcek (physics, 2004), Sheldon Glashow (physics, 1979) and Roy Glauber (physics, 2005). One of them will also be the prize in the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.THEME: The theme of this year's ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: FORCE.The ceremony will also include:
• The premiere of "The Blonsky Device", a mini-opera inspired by the life and work (US patent #3216423, "Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force") of 1999 Ig Nobel Prize winners George and Charlotte Blonsky. The opera stars Maria Ferrante (as Charlotte), Martin Kelly (as George), Philip Lima (as The Zookeeper) and Miles Rind (as The Patent Examiner), under the direction of maestro Henry Akona. They will be accompanied by, "The Forces of Nature", a new orchestra composed of Harvard and MIT doctors and researchers.
In a first for Neatorama, we are proud to present the ceremony to you in live streaming video. Continue reading to see the live webcast.
Update: The live webcast went great, and has been replaced by a video recording of the September 12, 2013 event.
PLUS, "as a courtesy to the NSA," Improbable Research had a second feed that showed what is going on backstage at the event.
NOTE added in edit: Oh, the patent dates to 1965, and so predates the novel.