[EAS] Ig Nobel Prizes

[Peter J. Kindlmann]

With much recent attention given the 2005 Nobel awards, let me be sure
you don't neglect the Ig Nobel awards
<http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-top.html>. Although the annual ceremony
is already past, you can view the accomplishments of past winers at
<http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html>.

The 2005 prize in Physics went to John Maidstone from Australia for an
experiment to measure the flow of black tar through a funnel.  Begun
in 1927, one glob drips every nine years.  As reported by Bob Parks in
his "What's New" <http://www.bobpark.org/>, "he shared the Ig with a
colleague who died between the second and third drops."
<http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/physics_museum/pitchdrop.shtml>

The 2005 prize in Economics went to Gauri Nanda
<http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Enanda/> of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, for inventing "Clocky" <http://www.clocky.net/>, an alarm
clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people
_do_ get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive
hours to the workday.

Other delights await you at the Ig Nobel site, such as the 2004 award
in Medicine to Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit,
Michigan, USA and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn,
Alabama, USA, for their published report "The Effect of Country Music
on Suicide" <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=95183303>.

    --PJK