Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353627 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Synopsis
The "Annals of Improbable Research" (AIR) is often desribed as the "Mad Magazine of Science". It is a bi-monthly magazine and an Internet Website. It is best known for hosting the "Ig Nobel" ceremony, honouring real scientists who have conducted funded research, yet whose achievements "cannot and should not be reproduced". This book will cover the Ig Nobel Prizes, their history, some highlights, and the 1996 Awards. Additional material about "Big Science" will include contributions by actual Nobel Laureates and articles that treat real science with a wry spin. The volume closes with suggestions for education and teaching of science, underscoring the need for the educated person to understand some basic science and to nurture the natural curiosity of children when they encounter science. It is for anyone interested in science humour.

Customer Reviews

Thoroughly Enjoyable!
As a scientist I really enjoyed reading about the many funny quirks of scientific experimentation. Perhaps without such eccentricities there would be no innovations! Great book! If you enjoy such "behind-the-bench" humor, I think you might like another book, which appealed to me and my R&D colleagues. It is entitled, "MANAGEMENT BY VICE" and the author is an experienced scientist, thus the book is filled with loads of real-life hilarious situations which arise between scientists and their bungling managers in high-tech industry. It does take place in the US, but I'd bet such antics are globally applicable. I recommend it as an adjunct to the marvelous compilation of scientific follies in these annals.

Scientists are humans too. And quite good pranksters
The Annals of Improbable Research is an institution by itself. A journal where Nobel Prize Winners amongst others write on the lighter side of science. Funny essays, stupid experiments, and completely non-sense conclusions, all of them scientifically backed up and explained. This Book collect some of the finest pearls that have appeared in the magazine and lets you wanting more. This book is the ultimate proof that your average Nobel Prize Winner can be a funny guy, and be able to laugh at himself and his work. Gives you a different (and funny) vision of science and scientists, by some of the best amongst them. A Definitive must buy if you are, even only remotly, linked to science, investigation, or technology. Your laughing source for when your experiment is going wrong at 3 a.m.

The funniest book I have ever read.
Journalistic disclaimer: I am the 'TFD' on page 67, under 'Sleep Research Update'. If you have any sense of humour whatsoever, this book is for you. Having just returned from Cambridge (our fair city), where I led the Historians for Feynman and Tanna Tuva as Queen of Gravitation at this years' Ig Nobels, I can promise you no end of Cosmic Giggles. Possibly the only book in history with blurbs from the Car Talk guys, a Nobel Prize winner, and the most glorious Martin Gardiner. Parents of small children: listen up! You cannot afford to miss the classic 'Taxonomy of Barney', much less 'The Aerodynamics of Potato(e) Chips'. Too funny for words.