
The 1993 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

The winners of the 1993 Ig Nobel Prizes were announced
in a ceremony held at MIT in Cambridge, MA on October 7, 1993. 
The Prizes honor individuals whose achievements cannot or 
should not be reproduced. The ceremony was produced, as usual, 
by The Journal of Irreproducible Results and The MIT Museum.

Eleven Ig Nobel Prizes were given this year. The winners 
come from 16 different countries: Australia; Belgium; 
Canada; England; France; Germany; Ireland; Israel; 
Luxembourg; the Netherlands; New Zealand; the Philippines; 
Poland; Spain; Switzerland; and the United States.

A number of dignitaries shared the podium at the ceremony, 
including Nobel Laureates William Lipscomb (Chemistry, 
1976), and Sheldon Glashow (Physics, 1979); Professor 
emeritus Russell Johnson of Gilligan's Island; "Einstein's 
Dream" author Alan Lightman; Root canal therapy expert 
Philip Molloy of Tufts University Dental School, MIT 
economist Paul Krugman, and jazz harpist Deborah Henson- 
Conant.

The new winners:

PSYCHOLOGY
John Mack of Harvard Medical School and David Jacobs of 
Temple University, mental visionaries, for their leaping 
conclusion that people who believe they were kidnapped by 
aliens from outer space, probably were -- and especially for 
their conclusion that, in Professor Jacobs's words, "the 
focus of the abduction is the production of children."
[Both Mack and Jacobs have written and spoken extensively on 
the subject. A good introduction is the book "Secret Life," 
by David Jacobs with an introduction by John Mack, Simon and 
Schuster, New York, 1992.]

CONSUMER ENGINEERING
Ron Popeil, incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of 
late night television, for redefining the industrial 
revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket 
Fisherman, the Cap Snaffler, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside- 
the-Shell Egg Scrambler.

BIOLOGY
Paul Williams, Jr. of the Oregon State Health Division and 
Kenneth W. Newell of the Liverpool School of Tropical 
Medicine, bold biological detectives, for their pioneering 
study, "Salmonella Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs."  [The 
study was published in "The American Journal of Public 
Health," vol. 60, no. 5, May, 1970. Kenneth Newell died in 
March, 1990.]

ECONOMICS
Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University, shrewd 
economist and best-selling author of "The Great Depression 
of 1990" ($17.95) and "Surviving the Great Depression of 
1990" ($18.95), for selling enough copies of his books to 
single-handedly prevent worldwide economic collapse.

PEACE
The Pepsi-Cola Company of the Phillipines, suppliers of 
sugary hopes and dreams, for sponsoring a contest to create 
a millionaire, and then announcing the wrong winning number, 
thereby inciting and uniting 800,000 riotously expectant 
winners, and bringing many warring factions together for the 
first time in their nation's history.

VISIONARY TECHNOLOGY
Presented jointly to Jay Schiffman of Farmington Hills, 
Michigan, crack inventor of AutoVision, an image projection 
device that makes it possible to drive a car and watch 
television at the same time, and to the Michigan state 
legislature, for making it legal to do so.
[Michigan House Bill 4530, Public Act #55 was signed into law 
by the Governor on June 6, 1991.]

CHEMISTRY
James Campbell and Gaines Campbell of Lookout Mountain, 
Tennessee, dedicated deliverers of fragrance, for inventing 
scent strips, the odious method by which perfume is applied 
to magazine pages.
[Additional historical information about
the invention of scent strips can be obtained from the 
Campbells' former colleague, Ronald Versic, President of the 
Ronald P. Dodge Company in Dayton, OH.]

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
At the specific request of author #48 of the SLD high energy 
physics research group, the 1993 Ig Nobel Literature Prize 
is NOT being awarded to him and his 405 co-authors for their 
research paper, "First Measurement of the Left-Right Cross 
Section Asymmetry in Z Boson Production by e+ e- Collisions," 
Physical Review Letters, volume 70, number 17, April 26, 1993.

LITERATURE
Awarded jointly to E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P. 
W. Armstrong, and their 972 co-authors, for publishing a
medical research paper which has one hundred times as many 
authors as pages.
[Source "An International Ramdomized Trial Comparing Four 
Thrombolytic Strategies for Acute Myocardial Infarction," 
The New England Journal of Medicine, volume 329, number 10, 
September 2, 1993, pages 673-682. The co-authors come from 
15 different nations: Australia; Belgium; Canada; England; 
France; Germany; Ireland; Israel; Luxembourg; the 
Netherlands; New Zealand; Poland; Spain; Switzerland; and 
the United States.]

MATHEMATICS
Robert Faid of Greenville, South Carolina, farsighted and 
faithful seer of statistics, for calculating the exact odds 
(8,606,091,751,882:1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the 
Antichrist.
[Faid's complete calculation is contained in the book 
"Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come?" published by 
Victory House, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The pertinent section of the 
book was reprinted in the January, 1989 issue of Harper's 
Magazine.]

PHYSICS
Louis Kervran of France, ardent admirer of alchemy, for his 
conclusion that the calcium in chickens' eggshells is 
created by a process of cold fusion. [For an English 
language version of Kervran's research see the book 
"Biological Transmutations, and their applications in 
chemistry, physics, biology, ecology, medicine, nutrition, 
agriculture, geology," by Louis Kervran, Swan House 
Publishing Co., 1972.]

MEDICINE
James F. Nolan, Thomas J. Stillwell, and John P. Sands, Jr., 
medical men of mercy, for their painstaking research report, 
"Acute Management of the Zipper-Entrapped Penis."  [Nolan is 
Associate in Urology at the Guthrie Clinic in Sayre, PA. 
Stillwell is in private practice at North Urology, Ltd., in 
Robbinsdale, MN. Sands is Chairman of the Department of 
Urology, Naval Hospital, San Diego, CA. Their report was 
published in "The Journal of Emergency Medicine," vol. 8, 
1990.]

Press contacts for more information: 
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MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 
(617) 253-4422    ktl@mitvma.mit.edu

Marc Abrahams, Editor
The Journal of Irreproducible Results, P.O. Box 380853, 
Cambridge, MA  02238 (617) 491-4437   jir@athena.mit.edu

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