The Ig Nobel Prize has been with us for a few decades. I hadn’t realized that Erich von Daniken, who has recently died, was awarded this “honour.” I can immediately think of someone who might be awarded this honour in the Peace category. Do you know who I mean?
The Ig Nobel is a satirical prize and its purpose is to promote public engagement with scientific research. Wikipedia says its aim is to “honour achievements that first make people laught, and then make them think.” Well, it isn’t clear to me that laughter could be a response to an Ig Nobel Peace Prize.
Most of the Ig Nobels are for genuine scientific achievements with an unorthodox, obvious or humorous slant OR to various fraudsters, politicians, media figures, or promoters of pseudoscience. That last category was likely the one for Erich von Daniken’s fame.
There is a scientific humour magazine - Annals of Improbable Research. Go to that website HERE now. See the headline: “The straight poop: New study finds square feces may deliver information” - now that alone is a funny headline. The Ig Nobel Prize money is a whopping 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars ($40.00 US).
There is a person who has been awarded an Ig Nobel and a Nobel Prize.
“Sir Andre Geim, who had been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog by magnetism, was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 for his work with the electromagnetic properties of graphene. He is the only individual, as of 2025, to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel.”
Do you think it is more or less possible to see an an Ig Nobel Peace Prize soon given that Google can’t figure out the difference between between the Peace Prize and the other Nobel Prizes - physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature and economics. Maybe people’s smartness isn’t that unlike Googles. I see a scenario where an Ig Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Trump, and he’s extraordinarily happy - except when he finds out what 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars are worth.
Here’s another favourite image - this one in Frank Kershaw’s garden - a beautiful trellis art feature.
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