Friday, October 2, 2009

IgNobel 2009

Побывали вчера на очередной церемонии вручения ИгНобелевских премий. Подробная программа - вот здесь. Разные способы увидеть всё это замечательное действо на сети см. здесь. А вот и список лауреатов. Настоящих нобелевских лауреатов в этот раз подвалила целая куча (там в программе они перечислены). Интересно было полюбоваться живьем на Кругмана и Памука. С ними там особенно не церемонились, обязанностью одного нобелиста (по химии, кажется) было подметать пол от бумажных самолетиков, другие (во главе как раз с Кругманом) вытаскивали шпагу из горла шпагоглотателя, и т.д.

Из премий наибольший энтузиазм публики вызвала вот эта:

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Elena Bodnar.

Особенно замечательна была практическая демонстрация, когда автор изобретения извлекала из-под платья всё новые образцы запатентованного устройства, с недюжинной сноровкой изготавливала из каждого пару газовых масок и нахлобучивала их на подвернувшихся под руку нобелистов (начиная с того же Кругмана).

Мне понравилась еще и вот эта:

LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland's police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means "Driving License".
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: [Karolina Lewestam, a Polish citizen and holder of a Polish driver's license, speaking on behalf of all her fellow Polish licensed drivers, expressed her good wishes to the Irish police service.]

(Там на экране показывали несколько этих польских карточек с водительскими правами - действительно, на них написано Prawo Jazdy как раз в том месте, где у всех остальных стран находится имя водителя.)

UPDATE: OMG, how could I forget to say this? Katya, thanks so much for this wonderful treat!

7 comments:

katyaz said...

I'm glad you had a good time. :)

avzel said...

See update. Shame on me.

katyaz said...

Oh, I didn't mean to force you to update! But, you're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Actually, I should have made it more clear before that Leo and Karen and I decided to go in on this together, so it was a present from all of us. I'm sure they're glad you enjoyed it, too.

It was a nice surprise to see Orhan Pamuk there, I've got to say. I expected there to be science Nobel Laureates, but somehow, I never expected to see him. I wonder how they got him to come.

avzel said...

Pamuk didn't seem to be very comfortable there, I must say (not to mention that he apparently got lost on his way there). I am afraid I don't find humor to be one of his strengths as a writer.

katyaz said...

Yeah, I am not sure he really knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to come. And it did seem a little bit like they weren't sure he was going to come. I noticed that they very carefully didn't mention that he was going to be there, until they knew for sure that he was actually there.

And you are right that he looked a little shell-shocked, especially during that bra face mask demonstration, poor guy. *g*

But still, Orhan Pamuk, in person! When the announcer said his name, it felt so random and out of the blue that for for a moment, I almost thought I'd misheard what he said! It must have been quite a coup for them to get him there.

alevaj said...

Сегодняшняя премия, как мне кажется, к этому хеппенингу тоже бы неплохо подошла.

avzel said...

alevaj: не думаю, там дают за что-то конкретное, а не авансом. И потом там обычно бывает смешно.