搞笑诺贝尔奖：先笑，后思考

搞笑诺贝尔奖是对享有盛誉的诺贝尔奖的有趣模仿，自 1991 年起每年颁发一次。颁奖典礼于每年 9 月中旬举行

The Ig Nobel Prize, established in 1991, is a lighthearted parody of the prestigious Nobel Prize. Awarded annually, the Ig Nobels aim to celebrate bizarre yet intriguing research that, in the words of its tagline, “first makes people laugh, and then makes them think.”

搞笑诺贝尔奖设立于 1991 年，是对享有盛誉的诺贝尔奖的轻松模仿。搞笑诺贝尔奖每年颁发一次，旨在表彰奇异而又有趣的研究，用其口号来说，“首先让人们发笑，然后让他们思考。”

The ceremony is held each year in mid-September, coinciding with the announcement of the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes. Real Nobel laureates present the Ig Nobel awards in a lighthearted ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

该颁奖典礼于每年九月中旬举行，与公布真正的诺贝尔奖获得者的时间一致。真正的诺贝尔奖获得者在麻省理工学院 (MIT) 举行的轻松的仪式上颁发了搞笑诺贝尔奖。

From Physics to Public Health: A Range of Ig Nobel Categories

从物理学到公共卫生：一系列搞笑诺贝尔奖类别

Each year, ten prizes are given across various categories, including physics, chemistry, medicine, and even offbeat areas like Probability and Public Health. The winners receive a nominal cash prize of 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars—an almost worthless currency, but a valuable collector’s item.

每年都会颁发十个奖项，涵盖物理、化学、医学，甚至概率和公共卫生等另类领域。获奖者将获得 100 万亿津巴布韦元的象征性现金奖励——一种几乎毫无价值的货币，但却是有价值的收藏品。

Despite the humor, the Ig Nobel prizes are grounded in genuine research and occasionally draw attention to important or overlooked topics. A few iconic examples include:

尽管幽默，搞笑诺贝尔奖却以真实的研究为基础，偶尔会引起人们对重要或被忽视的话题的关注。一些标志性的例子包括：

Insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces (2006, Physics)

深入了解为什么当你弯曲干意大利面条时，它经常会断成两块以上（2006，物理学）

An investigation into the scientific validity of the “five-second rule” about whether it’s safe to eat food that’s been dropped on the floor (2004, Public Health)

关于食用掉落在地板上的食物是否安全的“五秒规则”的科学有效性的调查（2004 年，公共卫生）

In 2017, Marc-Antoine Fardin received the Physics award for using fluid dynamics to explore the question “Can a Cat Be Both a Solid and a Liquid?”

2017 年，Marc-Antoine Fardin 因利用流体动力学探索“猫可以同时是固体和液体吗？”这一问题而获得物理学奖。

The Ig Nobels: Uncovering Truths Through Absurdity

搞笑诺贝尔奖：通过荒谬揭示真相

The Ig Nobel prizes may seem like all fun and games, but they often serve a deeper purpose. Many of the prize-winning studies offer new perspectives on real-world problems, encouraging the scientific community to approach challenges with creativity and humor.

搞笑诺贝尔奖看似充满乐趣和游戏，但它们往往有更深层次的目的。许多获奖研究为现实世界的问题提供了新的视角，鼓励科学界以创造力和幽默来应对挑战。

For instance, Sir Andre Geim, who won an Ig Nobel in 2000 for “levitating a frog” using magnets, also won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for his groundbreaking work on graphene. To date, he is the only person to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel Prize.

例如，安德烈·海姆爵士 (Sir Andre Geim) 因利用磁铁“悬浮青蛙”而获得了 2000 年搞笑诺贝尔奖，他还因其在石墨烯方面的开创性工作而获得了 2010 年诺贝尔物理学奖。迄今为止，他是唯一一位同时获得诺贝尔奖和搞笑诺贝尔奖的人。

2024’s Laughable—and Thought-Provoking—Achievements

2024 年可笑但发人深省的成就

This year’s awards were held at MIT after four years of being conducted via webcast, continuing the tradition of highlighting unexpected brilliance. Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, along with a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates, physically presented the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new Ig Nobel winners.

经过四年的网络直播，今年的颁奖典礼在麻省理工学院举行，延续了突出意想不到的才华的传统。诺贝尔奖获得者阿比吉特·巴纳吉 (Abhijit Banerjee) 与一群真正的、真正困惑的诺贝尔奖获得者一起，亲自向新晋搞笑诺贝尔奖获得者颁发了搞笑诺贝尔奖。

Among the notable achievements:

取得的显著成就包括：

The Peace Prize was awarded to B.F. Skinner, posthumously, for his pigeon-guided missile system. His experiment showed the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths. Yes, pigeons were trained to peck at a target, helping to guide missiles to their destinations. While the project never saw military use, it underscored the innovative—and slightly eccentric—thinking that the Ig Nobel celebrates.

BF Skinner 因鸽子制导导弹系统而被追授和平奖。他的实验表明了在导弹内安置活鸽子以引导飞行路径的可行性。是的，鸽子被训练来啄食目标，帮助引导导弹到达目的地。虽然该项目从未用于军事用途，但它强调了搞笑诺贝尔奖所庆祝的创新且略显古怪的想法。

Indian Ig Nobel Laureates

印度搞笑诺贝尔奖获得者

Indians and individuals of Indian origin have also made their mark in the quirky world of Ig Nobel Prizes. Among them is former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who, along with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for their “aggressively peaceful” nuclear tests. Despite the tense political climate, both leaders described their tests as “peaceful.”

印度人和印度裔个人也在搞笑诺贝尔奖的奇异世界中留下了自己的印记。其中包括印度前总理阿塔尔·比哈里·瓦杰帕伊，他与巴基斯坦总理纳瓦兹·谢里夫一起因“积极和平”的核试验而于 1998 年荣获搞笑诺贝尔和平奖。尽管政治气氛紧张，两位领导人都称他们的测试是“和平的”。

In the same category, in 2003, Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh won the prize for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign for 19 long years against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.

在同一类别中，2003 年，来自北方邦的拉尔·比哈里 (Lal Bihari) 凭借三重成就而获奖：第一，尽管已被宣布死亡，但仍过着积极的生活；第二，在长达19年的时间里，开展了一场反对官僚主义惰性和贪婪亲属的激烈运动；第三，创建亡人协会。

Lal Bihari even overcame the handicap of being dead and managed to obtain a passport from the Indian government so that he could travel to Harvard to accept his Prize. However, the U.S. government refused to allow him into the country. Filmmaker Satish Kaushik’s “Kaagaz” (2021) movie starring Pankaj Tripathi is based on his life.

拉尔·比哈里甚至克服了死亡的障碍，成功获得了印度政府的护照，以便他可以前往哈佛大学领奖。然而，美国政府拒绝允许他入境。电影制作人萨蒂什·考希克 (Satish Kaushik) 的电影《Kaagaz》(2021) 由潘卡吉·特里帕蒂 (Pankaj Tripathi) 主演，改编自他的生活。

In 2005, Indian-origin MIT graduate student, Gauri Nanda was awarded the Ig Nobel in Economics for inventing “Clocky,” an alarm clock that runs away and hides, forcing people to get out of bed to turn it off, thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.

2005年，印度裔麻省理工学院研究生高里·南达（Gauri Nanda）因发明“Clocky”而获得搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖，这是一种会跑走并隐藏起来的闹钟，迫使人们起床才能将其关闭，从而在理论上增加了许多闹钟。工作日的生产时间。

The Ig Nobel discoveries may not change the world, but they remind us that science doesn’t always have to be serious—it can be fun, strange, and surprising. So next time you toss a coin, remember that the side it started on just might win, and that research—even the wackiest kind—can inspire both laughter and learning.

搞笑诺贝尔奖的发现可能不会改变世界，但它们提醒我们，科学并不总是严肃的——它可以是有趣的、奇怪的和令人惊讶的。因此，下次你掷硬币时，请记住，硬币开始的一面可能会获胜，而研究（即使是最古怪的研究）也可以激发欢笑和学习。