The winners of the 1993 Ig Nobel Prizes wee 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 ten 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:
Kathleen Thurston-Lighty, Assistant Director
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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