Why don't pregnant women topple over? Do cows
notice kindness? Does cracking your knuckles
bring on arthritis? And is there more than one
use for a bra? These questions and more inspired
the research rewarded at the Ig Nobels, which
were handed out on Thursday at Harvard University
in a ceremony organised by the Annals of Improbable Research.
After a year of global financial turmoil, the
theme was risk, expounded in a 1-minute keynote
address by Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician
who years ago showed that financial markets are fraught with wild fluctuations.
After a year filled with a flock of financial
achievements any one of which might merit an Ig
Nobel, the economics prize was bound to be
controversial. The Ig Nobel committee picked the
management and auditors of four Icelandic banks
Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank and the
Central Bank of Iceland for experimentally
demonstrating that financial market fluctuations
can rapidly transform very small banks into very
large banks, then rapidly reverse the process,
thereby demolishing the national economy.
Full article:
Best of the Ig Nobel prizes 2009 -
science-in-society - 02 October 2009 - New
Scientist -
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17899-best-of-the-ig-nobel-prizes-2009.html
. . . ronn! :)
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