The IG Nobel Prize for Mathematics: A History

Did not think of that, did you?

“The Stinker”, official mascot of the Ig Nobel Prize.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, traditionally held at Sanders Theater, Harvard University, was webcast on 18th September, 2020, at 3:30AM IST (or on 17th September, 2020, at 6PM US Eastern Time) on YouTube. For the first time in its history, due to Covid-19, an in-person ceremony could not be held. I am deeply sad as this year’s ceremony could not see the airplane deluge leading to the stage litter, and subsequently, the cleaning of the said litter.

As science students, we tend to think of research as something sacred, pure, divine, and above all- extremely serious. Every year, the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine, organizes this event to remind us that all research counts- even the most absurd- because they are “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." Nobel Laureates from all over the world come together to award these parody Nobel Prizes and honor the most unconventional, and mostly useless, research works done in the recent history in different fields. The categories themselves are not rigidly defined and can include any field, ranging from Acoustics to Management, to conventional Nobel Prize categories of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Peace, Literature and Economics.

Traditionally, the new winners give short public talks at MIT, two days after the ceremony. This year, the Ig Informal Lectures, will happen entirely online (like the ceremony). The Ig Informal Lectures will happen in November. Exact date, and other details, TBA.

As the Ig Nobel Prizes complete 30 years today, we want to look back at all the winners of the Mathematics Ig Nobels.

1993

Winner: Robert W. Faid of Greenville, South Carolina Research: Robert W. Faid calculated the exact odds (710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist. Mikhail Grobachev is a former Soviet politician who was the eighth and the last leader of Soviet Union. Although opinions are deeply divided, almost everyone acknowledges that Grobachev is one of the most visionary statesmen Russia has seen. Fun Fact: In 1988, India awarded Gorbachev the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development and in 1990, he was given the Nobel Peace Prize for "his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community".

1994

Winner: The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama Research: County-by-county estimation of how many Alabama citizens will go to Hell if they don't repent. The following headline appeared in Birmingham News on September 5, 1993: “Baptists count the lost. 46% of Alabamians face damnation, report says".

2002

Winners: K.P. Sreekumar and the late G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India Research: “Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants (Elephas maximus indicus)” Their abstract reads: ‘The best prediction of total surface area (S) in m2 was obtained for adults irrespective of sex by using the two parameters, the height at the shoulders (H) in m and forefoot pad circumference (FFC) in m in the formula S = -8.245 + 6.807H + 7.073FFC. No significant improvement in the accuracy of prediction resulted from the use of the independent best fit formulae for males and females. The conventional method of using the exponential of body weight (kg) for predicting surface area was not found to yield an equivalent accuracy in these animals.’

2006

Winners: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization Research: Calculated the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed. The research relies on the fact that each person’s blinks are independent of other persons’ blinks- unless you have something stuck in your eye. This is how the math goes: In a group of less than 20 people, divide the number of people by 3. This is the number of shots required to capture that perfect photo. In bad light, due to prolonged time the shutter takes to close, the number of people needs to be divided by two. As the size of the group increases, the number of shots you need to take increases exponentially, says Svenson. And by the time there are around 50 people in the group, she says you can "kiss your hopes of an unspoilt photo goodbye".

2009

Winner: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank Why? For giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000). The award refers to the Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. The inflation measured during its peak month in 2008-2009 was 79.6 BILLION percent month-on-month!

2011

Winner: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011) Why? For teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

2015

Winners: Elisabeth Oberzaucher and Karl Grammer Research: Used mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed, during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children. The abstract of their paper reads: ‘We based our calculations on a report dating 1704, thus computing whether it was possible to have 600 sons in a reproductive timespan of 32 years. The algorithm is based on three different models of conception and different social and biological constraints.’

No Ig Nobel Prizes in Mathematics have been awarded since 2015. Thank God?