Ig Nobel Tickets Go on Sale

Tickets for the "Fifth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony," a spoof of the Nobel Prize Awards, go on sale at 9:00 a.m. this morning in Holyoke Center.

The awards ceremony, honoring those whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced," is set to take place next Friday at 7:00 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall, its first time at Harvard since its start at MIT. Tickets cost $5.00.

According to Marc Abrahams, editor of "The Annals of Popular Research" and one of the event's organizers, ten prizes are to be given out: "half for horrible things and half for things that turned out to be whimsical things."

"It's been getting better each year," he said. "Nominations now come in over the net from around the world."

Several Harvard professors are involved in the ceremony.

"I'm deeply involved in a mysterious way. It's deeply mysterious," said Higgins Professor of Physics Sheldon A. Glashow, who has won a slightly less "Ig" Nobel Prize in Physics. "I'll try to get excited next week."

He added he expected the 200 tickets for the awards to sell out quickly.

"There are lines around the block for my physics class, so I'm sure there will be more [people] for something a lot more interesting like this," he said.

"It's fun," added Lawrence Professor of Chemistry William Lipscomb, a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.

This year's keynote address will be given by a former prize winner, Dr. Robert Lopez.

He won an Ig Nobel in 1994 for experimentally placing cat ear mites in his ear to see whether they could move from pets to humans. He found they could, but that humans became immune after a few times.

Harvard Nobel Prize winners Glashow, Lipscomb and Baird Professor of Science Dudley Hershbach will be among the presenters of the awards.

Also featured in the evening will be the "Heisenberg Certainly Lectures" on humorous topics.

This year's lecturers include Professor of Astronomy Robert Kirshner, "the David Letterman of Astronomy," Tom and Ray Magliozzi, of National Public Radio's "Car Talk," and Sally Yeh, president of the company which created DNA Fragrances for men and women. Other lectures will be given by some of the laureates.

This year's theme is slated to be DNA, which will be the focus of song and dance throughout the evening.

Past winners of the prizes include Ivette Bassa, who invented bright blue jello (Chemistry) and former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates (Peace).

In addition, the Southern Baptist Church was given an award for compiling figures on how many people in different areas in Alabama would go to hell, Abrahams said.

The presenter for that award was a Norwegian official, who said he was delighted so many people would be moving to Hell, Norway.

The Annals of Improbable Research, the Harvard Computer Society and Tangents are sponsoring the event.