WEBVTT - The Ig Nobel Prize 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.680 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.240 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:24.600 are you? So today we're going to talk about something 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:31.640 goofy because I am still in Las Vegas, and working 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.479 in another city is hard, y'all. For those of you 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.239 who travel a lot for work, I don't know how 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.160 you do it. When I travel for work, I find 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.239 it incredibly disruptive. So I sought out something kind of 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.760 fun and funny to talk about in order to maintain 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.080 my sanity while I'm on the road. So back in 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:57.520 the nineteenth century, a scientist, a polyglot and an arms 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:03.320 manufacturer who also happened to have invented dynamite, decided fairly 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.800 late in life that he would devote his massive fortune 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:12.119 that he had attained through blowing stuff up toward funding 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:21.240 the Nobel Prize awards. That man was Alfred Nobel Prize. No, sorry, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.320 my wife's just told me. It's just Alfred Nobel. He 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.959 ordered that a panel would award prizes in five categories 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:35.959 physical science, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The panel does 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.759 not take nationality into account. It could be anyone from 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.360 anywhere in the world. Awards can go to multiple individuals 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:48.080 per category, per year. Typically they tend to be colleagues 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.240 or they worked on the same problem or area of focus, 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.720 but there can be multiple winners. But we're not here 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.680 to talk about the Nobel Prize. Instead, we're here to 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.480 talk about a prize that only dates back to nineteen 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.320 ninety one, and it's for stuff that, at least on 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:11.520 the surface level, is either very silly or infuriating. So 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.800 we are talking about the ig Nobel Prize. Now. To 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.679 set the stage, it's first to get to know a 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.720 little bit about a couple of journals in the science 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.960 world that don't really fit your normal perception of a 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:29.240 science journal. The first is the Journal of Irreproducible Results. 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.240 Think of it as kind of like a National Lampoon 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.560 or Mad Magazine for science nerds. I use the term 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.760 science nerds affectionately. I also realize that National Lampoon and 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.720 Mad Magazine might be references that none of you get. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:48.359 But that's fine. Now. One could argue that the webcomic 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.720 XKCD kind of embraces a bit of the spirit found 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.320 in that journal. The content includes stuff like outright satirical 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:03.320 pieces to cover of scientific research into seemingly trivial matters, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.000 you know, like the kind of stuff like if there 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.680 was actually a study to determine if you drop a 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.160 slice of buttered toast, are the odds greater that the 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.200 toast will land on the floor butterside down or not? 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.160 You know, someone has to research that. So the story 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.720 goes that after launching in the nineteen fifties, the Little 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.640 Humor magazine began to grow. And this was actually a 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.440 problem because the two guys who had launched the magazine, 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.519 which were a virologist named Alex Cohne and a physicist 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.480 named Harry Lipkin, they started the whole thing. It's kind 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.560 of a joke, but it gradually grew into becoming a success, 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.800 which meant that it went from being a joke to 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.520 serious work to put this together. They already had serious 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:52.280 work that they had to do with, you know, like 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.600 viruses and you know, I don't know, physics. In the 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.040 nineteen sixties, the pair passed the publication off to a 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.640 different publisher, and a medical researcher named George Cher became 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.240 publisher for a while, but then in the late nineteen eighties, 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.160 a scientific journals publisher called Blackwell Scientific Publications took over 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:19.359 publishing this satirical magazine. Now, the journal has had several 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.360 editors over its history, but one in particular stands out 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.800 with regard to this episode that we're doing today. That 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.680 would be Mark Abraham's. He became the editor of the 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.960 journal in nineteen ninety one and he remained the editor 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.719 for three years. He wrote an essay for The Guardian 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.640 in which he laid out how things unfolded. So apparently 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.840 he submitted a small sample of stuff he had written 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.080 in the vein of funny science articles. Because he had 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.240 written these things, he wanted to get them published somewhere, 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.480 he wasn't having much luck, so unsolicited, he sent them 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:59.359 off to this magazine. The publisher called him and offered 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.039 him the job of editor of the magazine, which was 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.880 not what he was expecting. But the trick was that 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.960 he would have no real resources to put the journal together. 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.279 He would have no staff, he would have no money 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:17.440 to speak of. But he really wanted to do this 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.800 kind of stuff, so he said okay, And he even 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.520 called out the original co founders of the magazine who 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.960 had been retired for ages. They happily came back out 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.200 to help out with sort of a relaunch of this magazine. Now, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:36.560 the journal's transformation caught the attention of Blackwell's leadership, and 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.520 it wasn't long before Abraham's was told he was going 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.919 to actually get the money and the support that he 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.760 had been needing but had not received. However, before that 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.159 could happen, this is always the case, there was a 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.520 change in leadership at the publishing company and the new 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:58.039 president didn't see any real value in the Journal of 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:04.160 irreproducible Results, so those offers of support withered away. So 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.039 then Abrahams decided, well, what if I offered to buy 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.440 the magazine from you? What would that cost? Well, suddenly 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.840 this property that had no value got the price tag 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.719 of a million dollars. It's amazing how something doesn't have 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.440 value until a person here is that someone else wants it. 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.640 I guess that's the definition of value. But to go 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.039 from oh, it's not worth anything to I'll sell it 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.000 to you for a million dollars is quite the turnaround. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.600 But Abrahams was not ready to put down that kind 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.120 of money, so he bailed, as did most of the 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.800 editorial staff. When Mark Abrahams left the journal in nineteen 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:48.719 ninety four, he founded his own science humor magazine. His 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.600 version is called The Annals of Improbable Research, or air 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:57.720 AIR for short. Now, the reason all this is important 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.360 is that Abrahams actually helped launch the ig Nobel Prize 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.840 back when he was editor of Irreproducible Results, but he 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.880 would continue when he shifted to create the Annals of 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.239 Improbable Research. I'm leaving out a lot of other stuff, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.120 a lot of drama that happened behind the scenes, like 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.640 George Cher brought a lawsuit against Improbable Research and that 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.880 kind of thing, you know, because George Share, the guy 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.120 who had been the publisher for Irreproducible Results until nineteen 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.560 eighty nine, actually became the publisher again after Blackwell essentially 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.000 abandoned the journal. Yeah, so there's all this kind of 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.880 crazy drama in the background. But that's not really what 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.880 we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.040 the IG Nobel Prizes. Typically, it goes to actual scientific 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:48.120 researchers and rewards work that on the surface seems trivial, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.720 maybe even just a total waste of time, but it 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.480 falls into a category that Abraham's describes as something that 0:07:54.560 --> 0:08:00.200 first makes you laugh then makes you think. And maybe 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.960 it makes you think about something in a really interesting 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.520 new way. Maybe it doesn't, Maybe it just makes you 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:12.560 think what prompted this research? But yeah, Sometimes something that's 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.640 on the surface level that appears to be ridiculous may 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.920 actually lead you to say things like, yeah, but why 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.360 does that happen that way? Or something similar like does 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.840 buttered toast fall buttersided down? More frequently the butterside up? 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.000 And what would happen if you tied a piece of 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.959 buttered toast to the back of a cat and then 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.160 dropped it. Don't do that anyway. The Ignobel Prizes would 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.640 also go to people as a way to satirically ras them. 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.120 Sometimes it was not meant as a as kind of 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.320 a fun, cheeky award. Sometimes it was just meant to 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:55.080 say this is messed up. For example, a nineteen ninety one, 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.439 the first year they ever had the Ignobel Prizes, they 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.160 offered an award in edge education and it went to 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:07.080 former US Vice President Dan Quail for quote demonstrating better 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:13.080 than anyone else the need for science education end quote zing. 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.600 Other awards would go out to scientists and others who 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:23.520 perpetuated pseudoscience, ranging from homeopathy to crop circles to perpetual motion. 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.720 In those cases, the award was perhaps a bit less 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.320 good natured and more of an attempt to shame someone 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.680 for coming up short when it comes to scientific rigor. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.880 We're going to focus primarily on some of the prizes 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.760 awarded for stuff that relates to technology, you know, tech stuff. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.880 The first ig Nobel Prize for Technology was in nineteen 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.640 ninety three, and it went to Jay Schiffman, who had 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.679 been working on a technology that would project instrument gauges 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.720 onto the cockpit windshield of an airplane. So essentially what 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.280 we're talking about here is augmented reality. But that's not 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.520 what the prize was for. It wasn't because he had 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.480 come up with this concept or that he was testing 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.679 a technology to accomplish this. Because I mean that application 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.800 it totally makes sense. You would say, well, why would 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.120 you get Ignobel prize for essentially creating a heads up 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.839 display in an airplane cockpit? The prize was for how 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.400 Shiffman was trying to convince the airplane industry and airlines 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.920 and such that this technology was safe and reliable. So 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.640 to do that, he rigged up a nineteen seventy Chevrolet 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.840 panel truck so that he could project television images onto 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.280 the windshield. Now you might imagine that turning your windshield 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.240 into a transparent television screen might not be the best notion, 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.360 but Shiffman claimed it actually improved driver safety because people 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.760 were more likely to keep their eyes on the windshield 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.480 in front of them. Now, to be clear, the image 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.199 that the driver would see wouldn't take up the whole windshield, 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.760 and to the driver it would look like the screen 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.040 sort of in front of their car. Back in nineteen 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.240 ninety three, Schiffman met a lot of resistance among auto 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.320 manufacturers and legislators for this invention, but these days heads 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.160 up displays can be found in several vehicle lines. Heck, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.920 at the last CEES, BMW showed off a mixed reality 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.640 slider technology that would display AR images across the entire 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.240 width of the bottom of a windshield, so you could 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.200 get readouts from the far left all the way across 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.960 to the far right. And then BMW said it would 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.520 be possible to even transform a windshield into a big 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:38.240 screen TV, So you could argue that Shiffman's concept wasn't 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.520 wacky or bad. It was just way ahead of its time. 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:44.840 Or maybe it was wacky and bad and we'll find 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.680 out the hard way later on. Okay, we've got some 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.720 more Ignobel Prizes to talk about, but before we get 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:52.360 into any of those, let's take a quick break to 0:11:52.360 --> 0:12:03.960 thank our sponsor. Okay, when we left off, I talked 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.959 about a nineteen ninety three award. Well, that was also 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.880 the year that saw on Ignobel Prize go to Ron 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.959 Poe Peel, the guy who really kicked off the as 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.240 seen on TV gadget craze way back in the day, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:23.000 for inventions like the vegiomatic and the pocket Fisherman, a 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.480 device that would scramble an egg while it was still 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.840 inside it shell. Those all came courtesy of a mister 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.480 pop Peel, and I did an episode about him ages ago. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:34.880 In fact, you can actually do a search and find 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.840 an episode dedicated to Ron Popeel. It was a lot 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.840 of fun to talk about. The next Ignobel Prize related 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.120 to technology came in nineteen ninety seven, when the award 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:51.520 for Communications went to Sanford Wallace. Now, in case you 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:54.280 had not heard the name Sandford Wallace, or at least 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.360 it doesn't sound familiar to you, maybe you heard one 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:03.360 of his nicknames like Spamford Wallace or spam King. There 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:08.600 were also less family friendly names directed at him. Wallace 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.600 was a pioneer an electronic spam mail. He created a 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:18.000 company called Cyber Promotions that became notorious for blasting out 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.920 spam email to folks all around the world. And remember 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.800 this is in the early days of the Internet, when 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.400 some folks were just getting a handle on what email 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:32.959 even was. Wallace had a history involving let's say, questionable 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.000 marketing schemes, and his incredibly effective methods for sending out 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.400 spam mail got him some unwanted attention from various sources, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.520 including the US government. So he was the subject of 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.440 several cases criminal cases, and in nineteen ninety nine he 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.040 found himself temporarily banned from even having an Internet connection 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.160 thanks to his spam efforts. He would later go on 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.079 to create a business that allegedly infected computers with spyware. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.880 Then he would offer to remove the spyware in return 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.400 for a fee, kind of a smaller scale version of 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:13.040 ransomware in that regard. By twenty sixteen, he was facing 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.280 jail time and massive fines for his various escapades that 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:21.800 broadly speaking, attempted to monetize frustration and misery. He served 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.120 nearly two years in prison for all of that. Anyway, 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.880 the Ignobel Prize had his number way back in nineteen 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.800 ninety seven. Another nineteen ninety seven award went to a 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:37.280 guy named John Bachras. This award was for physics, and 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.240 it was another satirical jab at someone failing to use 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:45.080 scientific rigor. Bachras was a chemistry professor. He had employment 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.520 at Texas A and M University. He was originally from 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.640 South Africa, and he had made several claims that, if 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.720 they had held up, would have been truly revolutionary. So 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:56.760 one claim he had was that he had found a 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.440 way to separate hydrogen from oxygen using sunlight, which if 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.400 we're true, would have led to a hydrogen based economy 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.680 right away and would have been a huge jump in 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.920 our and meaning our energy needs without having to rely 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.880 on fossil fuels. He even said later that he came 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.400 up with an alternative method that didn't even need sunlight 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.360 and still was effective at separating hydrogen from oxygen. Now 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.800 you can do this by the way, you can use electrolysis, 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.640 which means you're passing an electric charge through water to 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.600 break those molecular bonds, but that means you have to 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:38.280 spend energy to get hydrogen to separate from oxygen. And 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.760 if the energy you're spending is greater than what you 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.440 can capture through using that hydrogen as a fuel or whatever, 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.840 then you're at a net loss. Right, You're spending more 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.240 energy to get the fuel than the fuel actually provides 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:56.720 you in useful work. So if Bakraus's methodology had worked, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.760 it would have been transformational. By the way, that was 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.360 not the the only odd claim he had made throughout 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.840 his career. Another one involved claims about cold fusion, which 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.720 is carrying out the process of fusion, that is, fusing 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.880 two light atoms like lighter atoms like helium or hydrogen, 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.800 fusing those into a heavier atom, but doing so at 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.480 low temperatures, like close to room temperature. That's something that 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.080 just doesn't seem to be possible. We usually have to 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.160 do these kind of experiments at very very very high temperatures. 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.280 If we could do them at room temperatures, that also 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.640 would be transformational. But while people over the years have 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.560 claimed to have success with cold fusion, it's never actually 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:46.320 panned out. He also pursued transmutation. That's the old concept 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.720 from alchemy that involves transforming base materials into gold, So 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:56.240 that's what got him his Ignobel prize. In nineteen ninety eight, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:01.280 Troy Hertubi's received an Ignobel Prize for his Ursu's Suit, 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.520 a suit meant to protect the wearer from bear attacks. 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.560 So essentially this was a suit of armor. It's made 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:13.360 out of titanium and chain mail and hard plastic. Her 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.919 two Bees billed himself as a conservationist who wanted to 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.560 help save animals like grizzly bears, But the tricky thing 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.480 is those animals are super dangerous. Her two b said 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.159 he had been injured in a previous encounter with a 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.720 grizzly bear, so the suit was meant to keep him 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:36.080 safe in future encounters. He appeared in a National Geographic 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.040 special in which he tested out the suit himself, thus 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:44.520 earning him the Ignobel Prize for Safety Engineering. You may 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.280 even have seen video of him from one of these 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.520 demonstrations where a pair of people are holding up a 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.800 log that's attached to a pair of ropes. So it's 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.000 essentially a swing right, it's a big log and they 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.280 let it swing loose, and it's swings down and hits 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.800 this armored dude square in the chest, knocking him flat 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.280 in his back. That was her two bees wearing his 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:13.520 Ursus suit. Tragically, he would much later pass away in 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:18.760 a car accident. And it's interesting that he had several 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.119 different inventions that he claimed throughout his life, some of which, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.880 to put it lightly, I would say, are unsubstantiated claims 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:31.680 of success, like essentially of creating an invisible ray kind 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.760 of thing, like a ray that would turn you or 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:40.600 anything else translucent. At the very least, there never seemed 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.399 to be any actual proof of that. But he actually 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.520 did build the Ursu suit. In nineteen ninety nine, an 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:53.320 inventor named Hyuk Ho Kwan created the self perfuming business suit. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:58.920 So yeah, a business suit that smells real good. According 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.640 to the Harvard Crimson the suit quote emits a pleasant 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.280 fragrance when rubb end quote, so a scratch and sniff suit. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:12.200 Quan actually attended the Ignobel ceremony in person. That has 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.960 happened quite a bit. A lot of people have in 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:21.120 good humor attended the Ignobel Prizes to claim their prize 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.359 in person. So he went to the ceremony and he 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.840 brought with him four custom made self perfuming suits for 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.280 the four Nobel Laureates who were actually in attendance at 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:38.320 the prizes. That is class. Also, Quan's category was called 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.280 Environmental Protection, which I just think is brilliant. Also in 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.480 nineteen ninety nine, the Ignobel Prize awarded Charles Furie and 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:52.080 Michelle Wong in the category of Peace. So what had 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:57.600 they done to merit an Ignobel Prize for Peace. Well, 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:02.159 they had patented a car Securities that included not just 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:07.600 a burglar alarm, but a flamethrower as well, I guess 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.800 to torch the person who's attempting to steal a car, 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.960 which sounds a lot like they had watched RoboCop two, 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:19.240 which came out in nineteen ninety that included a satirical 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.119 commercial about anti theft device for cars that delivers a 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.879 fatal amount of voltage to the would be thief. And 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:27.760 maybe they saw that and thought, hey, what if we 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.480 made that but for real and with fire. Unlike Quan, 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.600 they did not attend the ceremony in person. They had 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.520 invented this in South Africa. I actually remember when this 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:44.280 happened because I remember watching a news segment where they 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:50.960 covered this particular invention and I thought, that is crazy 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:56.120 that setting someone on fire could be seen as an 0:20:56.160 --> 0:21:02.600 acceptable option. Yeah, that was a bonker's one. Now we 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.320 get our first prize awarded for software back in two thousand. 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:10.440 This went to Chris Niewander, who created a program called 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:16.120 paw Sense. So what did paw Sense do well. Paw 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.240 Sense would detect if a cat happened to be walking 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.360 across your keyboard. It would detect if there were these 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.320 little patches of nonsense texts that were coming in, and 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.000 then it would block in puts from your keyboard in 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.399 order to try and you know, preserve your important report 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.720 for your boss or your teacher. So it didn't include 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.840 absolute gibberish in the middle of it, you know, apart 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:40.719 from the stuff you put in there yourself. And then 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.760 it would also make a quote sound that annoys the 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.480 cat in the quote, so I guess it was meant 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:52.160 to scare the cat from standing on top of your keyboard. 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.359 I personally think that was a truly brilliant invention that 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:01.159 deserves a real Nobel Prize, not an ig Nobel Prize. 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:03.879 There was also an award for research into a really 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:08.560 crappy situation, which was namely the quote collapse of toilets 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.359 in Glasgow end quote. This went to researchers who reported 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.600 that due to aging commodes, essentially there were a few 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:23.560 cases of toilets breaking from underneath the sitter upon the throne, 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:27.480 which also meant these poor folks suffered some pretty nasty 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:31.159 cuts and abrasions in the process. It wasn't just you know, 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:38.160 a plumbing issue and potentially humiliating, but also legitimately dangerous. 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:40.600 So they did a study and then an issue a 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:46.960 report alerting people to this epidemic of breaking toilets. To 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.240 learn more about toilets, you should search the tech stuff archives. 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:52.520 I've got an episode I recorded with Josh Clark of 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.320 Stuff you Should Know. We talk all about the toilets 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:59.320 in that one, including some of the world's oldest toilets. 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.480 Flush toilets if you sort of flush toilets, if you 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.200 think of the tides as being your flushing mechanism, which 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:11.960 I actually visited several years ago. They were in Scotland, Okay, 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.320 we're going to take another quick break. When we come back, 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:18.160 I'm going to wrap up about these early Ignobel prizes 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:23.399 awarded in the fields of technology and related subjects. But 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:36.439 first we need to thank our sponsors. All Right, we're back. 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.240 So we're up to two thousand and one. We get 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:44.000 another satirical barb. The award for technology went to two 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:50.840 different recipients, John Keo and the Australian Patent Office. So 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.639 why well, just let me quote you the abstract on 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:59.520 the patent application that KO had sent in. Quote in 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.840 a court with a first aspect of the present invention, 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:09.160 there is provided a transportation facilitation device including a circular rim, 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:12.800 a bearing in which a hollow cylindrical member is rotatable 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:17.320 around a rod situated within the hollow cylindrical member, and 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:21.160 in a series of connecting members connecting the circular rim 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:24.320 with the hollow cylindrical member to maintain the circular rim 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:28.640 and the hollow cylindrical member in substantially fixed relation, wherein 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:32.359 the rod is positioned on an axis perpendicular to the 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:36.119 plane of the circular rim and substantially central of the 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:40.160 circular rim end. Quote. Now, in case he didn't pick 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:44.480 up on that he's essentially describing a wheel like a 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:48.000 bicycle wheel. I mean, that's what the description of the 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:52.320 invention amounts to. So he applied for a patent for 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:55.640 the invention of the wheel in two thousand and one. 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:01.880 Here's the kicker, the Australian Patent Office awarded him that patent. Now, 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:03.679 in case you're thinking he was trying to pull a 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:08.280 fast one, well sort of. He wanted to put Australia's 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:12.600 innovation patents to the test. He suspected that the Patent 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:15.960 Office was giving very little attention to these patents, which 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:19.120 have a much lower threshold than other types of patents. 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:23.280 And I'd say his demonstration proved his point. He was 0:25:23.320 --> 0:25:26.640 also a patent lawyer, so he was showing how backward 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:29.760 the system was, how broken it was, and that this 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:34.400 could cause real headaches and the court systems. Further on 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.600 and later on, the Australian Patent Office would quietly revoke 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:42.320 the patent for the wheel. I think this really kind 0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:45.800 of ties into the recent episodes I did about the 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:48.639 history of the US Patent Office. If you remember, in 0:25:48.640 --> 0:25:52.920 those early early years, there was this issue where the 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:56.880 Patent Office was told it wasn't their job to review patents. 0:25:56.880 --> 0:25:59.399 It was just their job to approve them, and that 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.439 the courts sorted out further down, which means that you 0:26:03.480 --> 0:26:06.119 could have two or three or countless people patent the 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:08.880 exact same thing. The patent office would have to award 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.520 a patent as long as they got the patent fee, 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:14.720 the application fee, and then the courts would have to 0:26:14.760 --> 0:26:17.560 decide which patent was the legitimate one, which kind of 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:20.320 seems like it's a really backwards way and wasteful way 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:25.080 to do things. That's kind of what Kio was pointing 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:28.200 out here. So I think the Ignobel Prize was really 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:31.560