|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 20 June 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Ig Nobel Dreams The Ig Nobel prize is awarded for "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced". Japan has had more than its fair share of winners. The prestigious Nobel Prizes are awarded to persons who have made outstanding services to humanity in science and literature, or through work to promote friendship between nations. There is another prize for achievement, although with slightly less lofty goals. This is the Ig Nobel Prize, awarded to people who have researched something that is silly, yet in some respect unique an profound, during the past year. The Ig Nobel Prize was founded and is currently administered by Harvard University graduate Marc Abrahams, editor of the humorous science magazine 'The Annals of Improbable Research'. As Abrahams puts it, "Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people laugh, then makes them think". Like the Nobel Prize, the Ig Nobel Prize is awarded in 10 categories, including Peace, Biology, and Physics. The list of prizewinners is announced in October each year, to coincide with the announcement of the Nobel Prizes. The Ig Nobel Prize-giving ceremony is held at Harvard University. Glancing over the 13-year history of Ig Nobel Prizes that have already been awarded, there is no shortage of unintentional humour; for example, the Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1992 was awarded for research on the "chemical compounds responsible for foot malodor", and the Ig Nobel Prize for Peace in 2000 was awarded to the British Royal Navy for "ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout 'Bang!'" as a cost-cutting measure. An unusually large number of Ig Nobel Prize recipients are Japanese; over the past 13 years, there have been nine Japanese recipients. 2002 and 2003 saw successive Japanese wins, and indeed 2002 was an excellent year for Japan: as well as Ig Nobel winners, there were two genuine Nobel Laureates, Masatoshi Koshiba and Koichi Tanaka. Winner of the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 was the Japanese toy maker Takara Co., Ltd. Their award was for "promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bowlingual, a computer-based automatic dog-to-human language translation device". Bowlingual picks up a dog's barking through a microphone, it analyzes the barks and translates them into one of some 200 different Japanese phrases. Bowlingual was a huge commercial success; 60,000 of the devices were sold in the first two months of its release in Japan. It attracted interest overseas as well, and is now also sold in the United States and South Korea. Development of Bowlingual was supervised by Masahiko Kajita, a marketing manager in the Life Culture Division at Takara. He has developed other nonsense hit products, such as a banana-shaped telephone receiver and a home-use beer server. "Our job is basically chasing after dreams, and we are delighted that the sort of work we do is worthy of a prize", laughs Kajita. Bowlingual was based on serious scientific research conducted at the Japan Acoustics Lab and by zoologists. Last year Takara also released a version for cats, called Meowlingual. According to Kajita, the secrets of developing successful products out of nonsense are creative thinking and decisive action. "People at other toy makers sometimes say it was no big deal, they had exactly the same idea", he says. "But it is very difficult to turn an idea into a product. As a company you have to go with the times, and develop the idea quickly". The Japanese winner of the Ig Nobel Prize in 2003 was Dr. Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University, who won it for Chemistry. Dr. Hirose was cited for "the chemical investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to attract pigeons". Dr. Hirose started this research when he was a student at Kanazawa University; he wondered why birds were not attracted to a bronze statue in Kenrokuen Garden, a famous Japanese-style garden in Kanazawa City. When he analyzed the chemical composition of the statue, he discovered that it contained five times the normal amount of arsenic. By experimenting with alloys, he was able to prove that the high level of arsenic was an effective deterrent to birds. Dr. Hirose suggests that the potential for practical use might be a big factor influencing the Ig Nobel judges: "Three years ago, someone won an Ig Nobel for developing underwear that deodorized wind. This research might seem like a joke, but deodorization technology like this can be applied to hospital sheets and other places. My research, too, could perhaps be applied in areas that have problems with bird excrement". Dr. Hirose shares the sentiment of awarding prizes that arouse interest in science through humour. "Winning an Ig Nobel Prize made me decide to stop looking at science as something complicated, and to see it instead as something simple and interesting. It is important to realize that discoveries and inventions generally emerge when people become curious about something in their daily lives, and then set out to explore the object of that curiosity". Listening to the stories of these two recipients, it is easy to see how the Ig Nobel Prize draws people closer to the essence of scientific inquiry. The Japanese government has set a bold goal to produce 30 Nobel prize winners over the next 50 years, as part of its aim to transform Japan into a country of creative science and technology. Perhaps some of Japan's future Nobel Laureates will take inspiration from the country's illustrious Ig Nobel prizewinners. Dr. Hirose shared with us a big dream of his: "To tell the truth, I've got my eyes set on a real Nobel Prize. I read that you would definitely win a Nobel Prize if you found a cure for baldness or athlete's foot". We look forward to seeing Dr. Hirose realize his dream. - Shin'ichi Okada |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
