I would have to say that, as a spectator sport, the Nobel Prizes are a real snoozefest. I can barely even make it through the list of winners. Take this one: “The 2008 Prize for Physics went to Yoichiro Nambu of the United States for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, and Makoto Kobayahi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in zzzzzzz . . .”
Sorry, I blacked out for a minute there. What were we talking about?
Oh yeah! Quarks!
I mean, quarks are important and all. After all, everything is made up of molecules, right? And molecules are made up of atoms, atoms are made up of protons and neutrons, and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. So you can just imagine how much time these people spend straining their eyes and trying to stay awake, doing something that no one else wants to do. They earned every penny of that prize money. But no one wants to hear about it.
Enter the Ig Nobel Prizes. The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Boston every year, and honors research that, in the words of the Annals of Improbable Research, the organization that runs the event, “First makes people laugh, then makes them think.” My articles are designed to do the same, except for the thinking part. Also, the Ig Nobel Prize winners don’t actually get any real money, so that’s another similarity to me and my columns.
And with that, we present some of the winners from 2010:
The Prize for Physics went to a group of scientists in New Zealand for demonstrating that, on icy sidewalks, people are less likely to slip and fall if they wear their socks on the outside of their shoes.
That definitely stands to reason. For one thing, these people will get invited out of the house less often as well.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, one minute. I have to put on my socks.”
“What are you doing? Oh, forget it; we’re not going.”
To prove this, they did an experiment in which they stood at the top of a hill and asked pedestrians if they’d like to put on socks over their shoes. Hilarity ensued.
They ended up with 30 volunteers who didn’t back away or call the cops, and none of those people fell, except for one guy who put on the socks but then took them off because he felt ridiculous, and he promptly fell over. Eventually, the scientists had to call it a day, because the volunteers kept walking off with the socks.
It’s weird, though. When we were growing up, whenever we ran around without shoes and we fell, our mothers would say, “See? It’s because you’re wearing socks!” I wonder what would have happened if we’d run around with socks on over our shoes. Probably our mothers would have noticed that they didn’t always match.
Meanwhile, the Prize for Management went to Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of Italy, who demonstrated mathematically that organizations would be more efficient if they promoted people at random.
This explains so much about your boss, doesn’t it?
Their conclusion is based on the Peter Principle, which says that, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.” Basically, most people are bound to be promoted at some point, so long as they work competently. But eventually, they get promoted to a position where they’re no longer competent, and they stay in that position for the rest of their career. In other words, most people spend a huge percentage of their careers attempting to do something they’re bad at. The principle was proposed in the 1960s by Dr. Laurence Peter, who was a scientist for most of his career.
“In time,” Peter says, “every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties.” Maybe this is what happened to Congress.
Using this principle, Alessandro and his associates say that if every well-thought-out decision you’re going to make, when it comes to promotions, is eventually going to turn out badly, then, mathematically, you’d be better off promoting people at random. Perhaps even off the street.
The Prize for Public Health, meanwhile, went to Manuel Barbeito, Charles Matthews, and Larry Taylor of Maryland. Basically, the three of them worked in a containment lab with someone, who, one day, decided to grow a beard. When his colleagues objected, he told them that there was no evidence that the beard posed any kind of hazard. So Barbeito, Matthews, and Taylor spent 73 days growing beards of their own, sprayed themselves with harmless bacteria, and demonstrated that it’s harder to wash the microbes out of beards than off plain skin. (This is why a lot of scientists choose to go bald.) Then they put a fake beard on a mannequin, sprayed that with harmless bacteria, put it in a cage with a bunch of chicks and guinea pigs, and noted that some of the animals got sick. By that time, they’d forgotten what they were working on in the containment lab in the first place. Eventually, their colleague shaved, just to get them to stop.
The Prize for Medicine went to two doctors in the Netherlands for discovering a revolutionary treatment for asthma: roller coasters.
It’s definitely more fun than inhalers.
How did they come up with this idea? Were they at an amusement park when suddenly someone had an asthma attack, and they said, “Don’t use your inhaler; let’s go on the roller coaster instead!” and then, after a short 45-minute wait followed by 60 seconds of screaming, lo and behold, the person was feeling better?
No. I read the study, and it actually says, “Repeated roller-coaster rides.” So I think the first time it didn’t quite work, and they were like, “Don’t worry! Let’s try a few more times!” And then, three short hours later, the person was better. Nauseated, but better.
Personally, I think it was just an excuse to go on repeated roller-coaster rides under the guise of research. I could see it. I would certainly go on a roller coaster for a column. “You know, only one of you has asthma. You don’t have to all go on.”
So you should definitely try to convince your doctor to put in a roller coaster.
“Really, Doc! It’s good for asthma! And raising blood pressure!”
“I see. Are you wearing shoes?”
“Yes! They’re under my socks.”
“Oh yeah! I can see them through the holes!”
Finally, the Prize for Engineering went to a group of scientists from the UK and Mexico for developing a method of collecting the fluids ejected from whales’ blowholes.
“What do they need it for?”
You don’t want to know.
Actually, you do want to know. Whales are endangered, so scientists don’t want them to get sick. I’m not sure what the scientists are going to do if the whales are sick—perhaps try to figure out how to get them on a roller coaster. The thing is, the most humane method of studying the whales is through their “blow,” which is a nice, humane way of saying “snot.” But unfortunately, collecting the blow presents some obvious challenges.
So the British and Mexican scientists thought long and hard about how to collect the blow, and they came up with the idea to fly a remote-controlled helicopter over the whales as they surface. When the whales blow, it gets all over the chopper, which then flies back to the scientists, who cannot believe they get paid to play with helicopters and look at whales. The scientists then reach out and grab the chopper with a good pair of socks over their hands. All in all, this is a much better method of collecting the blow than the way the scientists were getting to it before. It’s also very non-invasive. In fact, I think doctors should use a similar method for examining their patients.
That way, no one has to get off the roller coaster.

Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of three books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com.