by Len Fisher | 24 Sep 2021 | IgNobel Prize
A talk for the Bristol Scientific Club. a venerable institution founded 135 years ago by Lord Rayleigh. Great fun among some great scientists, one of whom (Sir Michael Berry) is a fellow Ig Nobel laureate! I’ll put a link up for the talk after I have delivered... 
by Len Fisher | 7 Apr 2021 | IgNobel Prize, News, Stray Thoughts, Think Like a Scientist: Media and Writing
I appeared on the front page of Wikipedia today (April 7th 2021). “Did you know?” asked the editors “that Len Fisher won the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize for physics for his research on the optimal way to dunk a biscuit?” You may or may not have known this. Certainly the story... 
by Len Fisher | 13 Feb 2017 | IgNobel Prize, Mini Stories from Science
The following wonderful letter appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine forty years ago. If the IgNobel Prizes had existed then, it would surely have been a leading candidate for the medicine prize. Who says that scientists don’t have a sense of humor?!... 
by Len Fisher | 20 Jan 2017 | IgNobel Prize, Stray Thoughts
I am stimulated to write this post by the news that the “celebrated American poet Joseph Charles McKenzie” has composed a poem to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration. The poem contains the immortal lines “With purpose and strength he came down from his tower To... 
by Len Fisher | 27 Oct 2016 | IgNobel Prize, Mini Stories from Science
What’s that smell? A school playground joke from my childhood concerns a new deodorant called “vanish”. It makes you invisible, so that no one can see where the smell is coming from. But how can we seriously get rid of bad smells? One way, which makes the... 
by Len Fisher | 23 Sep 2016 | IgNobel Prize, News, Stray Thoughts
It may sound ridiculous to argue that a spoof IgNobel Prize could ever have more value than an actual Nobel. Of course, when it comes to real science, the Nobels are still the pinnacle. But perhaps, as I pointed out in this interview on the BBC World Service recorded...