Ig Nobel seeks smartest person in the world

The “10th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony” will be held Thursday, Oct. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Sanders Theatre.

The ceremony honors scientifically minded achievements that “cannot or should not be reproduced.” Among the esteemed award presenters are genuine Nobel Laureates, including Harvard’s own Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry ’86), William Lipscomb (Chemistry ’76), and Sheldon Glashow (Physics ’79). In addition to the awards ceremony, this year will feature “The Great Intelligence Debate,” the winner of which will be declared “the smartest person in the world.” Ig Nobel’s founder Marc Abrahams (’78) explains: “Every Harvard student is thought to be, by definition, the smartest person in the world. But Sanders Theatre isn’t big enough to include all of them in a single debate, so in the best scientific tradition, we’re using a random drawing to select the smartest undergrad.” Interested students can enter the drawing at http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-2000-details.html.

The Ceremony is produced by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), and co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students, and Duck Brand Bubble Wrap.

Tickets for the ceremony are on sale at the Harvard Box Office in the Holyoke Center arcade; (617) 496-2222. The event will be telecast live on the Internet, and also recorded for later broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Science Friday” program. More information is available on the Web at http://www.improbable.com/.