“More than a million people have watched it. More than seven billion people have not.” This note about Marc Abrahams’ TEDMED talk displayed on the Improbable Research website offers clues about who he is and how a sense of humor governs his life.
A Harvard-trained mathematician, Abrahams, 70, founded Wisdom Simulators, a company that used computers to help people practice making impossible decisions. In other words, before creating the Ig Nobel Prizes, he was already obsessed with improbability.
The Ig Nobel Prizes are pronounced as they’re spelled; a play on the famous Nobel Prizes and the word “ignoble.” Abrahams, who was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, created the awards in 1991. And he’s been their driving force and master of ceremonies for all 35 editions.
All the award-winning studies share some common traits: they’re improbable, unexpected… but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good science. For instance, a study that won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2006 found that the malaria-carrying mosquito is just as attracted to Limburger cheese as it is to the smell of human feet had a direct consequence: traps using this cheese were placed in strategic areas across Africa, in order to combat the epidemic. And another Ig Nobel laureate, André Geim awarded for using magnets to levitate a frog and a sumo wrestler ended up winning a real Nobel Prize 10 years later.
The entertaining Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies are attended by actual Nobel laureates and have been held at prestigious American venues, such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Boston University. But this year, the ceremony has moved to Switzerland, because the US “has become unsafe” for the laureates, as the organization announced on Monday, March 9.
Abrahams sat down to chat with EL PAÍS via video conference after a couple of very busy and emotional days for him. After spending 35 years celebrating the improbable, he’s facing something he never imagined: that the impossible – the notion that the U.S. has become a hostile place for science – is actually happening.
Question. When and why did you start thinking about moving the Ig Nobel Prizes out of the U.S.? Answer. Actually, the process had two very distinct stages. I founded the Ig Nobel Prizes in 1991. It has grown with the help of many people around the world. But I’m not young, and so, I wondered about how to ensure that the project would continue after I was gone. Last year, during a dinner in Switzerland, I asked this question to one of the guests, who holds a very high position in academia and government. And we started making plans to create a foundation in Europe. That’s the sweet part of the story.
Q. And the not-so-sweet part? A. At the ceremony held last September – as always – there were 10 winners. Almost every year, they all manage to come, even though we don’t have the money to pay for their travel. But by 2025, things in the United States were already getting very difficult. I was surprised that nine out of the 10 said that they still wanted to come, despite everything. The tenth laureate said he was happy to receive the prize, but that he absolutely would not travel to the United States – very angry about what was happening. And that’s a standard thing. If somebody cannot travel, we’ll have somebody else come and accept the prize for them and read their speech.
In the week leading up to the ceremony, three other winners – seeing what was happening – decided it wasn’t safe to travel. Suddenly, only six of the 10 were present. And what we did for the [absent] four was that we had each of them send us the words of their acceptance speech. And, for each of them, we had a Nobel Prize winner read their acceptance speech, while we projected a big photo of them. That worked out pretty well.
Since then, things have gotten much worse in the United States. And it looks very clear that people really shouldn’t travel here… it’s just not safe.
Q. How did Boston University react to the decision? A. Sad that the ceremony is moving, but also very happy and supportive. [And we’re] still having an event at Boston University this year, three weeks after the ceremony in Zurich. We want to make it very clear that we’re not going to allow things to be destroyed.
Q. Was it an easy or painful decision for you, after 35 years of hosting the awards in Massachusetts? A. I still live here. I’m going to continue to live here. I’m sad that the ceremony isn’t happening [in Massachusetts]. We did it 35 times… and every one of those was completely magic for so many people. The magic will continue to happen, just not here. We’ll [bring] things back as much as we can. [But] it looks like it will be many years before the ceremony can happen in the United States again.
Question. You say that the situation in the United States isn’t safe. What exactly is happening to the scientific field in your country? Answer. [The situation] is extremely bad. And, in the near future, it’s mostly very, very bad. A lot of careers are being destroyed. A lot of careers are being prevented. A lot of ongoing research has already been destroyed. I could talk about this for hours. [That being said], some good things are going to happen as a result. In many places in the world, people are realizing that things can happen [anywhere]. We can do things on our own. We don’t have to always be trying to go to a bigger place or a place that has a bigger name (like the United States). It’s like watching a lot of little seeds that were in the ground starting to grow when spring comes.
In the United States, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Just a few days ago, there were big rallies for science all across [the country]. I gave a talk at the one in Boston. Four Nobel laureates were part of that.
The change has been very noticeable. There was a rally exactly a year ago, in the same place. [At the time], many of the scientists who [spoke] were just scared and confused, [unsure] about what they could possibly do. [But] this year, everybody was deeply angry, making it very clear that they’re going to do something.
Question. And what can they do? Answer. Many of them are saying that they cannot do science. The funding got taken away, their labs are being shut down, the students who come up with the best ideas have no money to live… [it’s] terrible. And some [scientists] are moving to other countries.
It’s a great time for every other country that has a long history of doing good science. Now, people in other places are waking up and realizing [that there are other good places] to do research.
Question. Can humor do something that serious protests aren’t capable of doing? Answer. Yeah, [it does] a couple of things. One is that it can get people interested. And I think that’s the real power of the Ig Nobel Prizes. If you’re laughing at one of these discoveries, you’re paying attention to it… and now, you’re interested.
The other aspect – which I’m sure you’ve heard many scientists talk about – is that science is a very difficult and frustrating profession. Science is one of the few professions where you know [for] a fact [that] most of what you do is going to fail. And, if you have a sense of humor about it, that can help an awful lot. That can help you keep going and stay cheerful and make sure that you keep at it, so that, sometimes, you can have wonderful success. So, [humor] is a small thing, but it’s a really important thing.
Question. When you founded the awards in 1991, did you think they would last 35 years? Answer. I thought [they] had a good chance to, but you never know. Since I was a little kid, I collected stories and I liked to write about science and funny things… but I never saw any grown-up who was doing that as a profession. [So], I was doing other things, [like] math and computer [science].
The question I asked myself one day was: “Hey, what would happen if I tried to get something published, something I’ve written?” And the answer was: “What’s going to happen if I don’t do that?” [I knew that, if I didn’t try], I [would] instantly become a really angry old man.
Question. How did you go from humor writing to creating the awards? Answer. [It happened] very quickly. I started meeting a lot of inventors, a lot of scientists. And, I kept thinking: “Nobody knows these people. And they never will. They’re going to live their lives and be forgotten. And that’s wrong. Something has to be done.”
We organized a small ceremony. By then, I already knew quite a few famous scientists and I asked them to come. I also knew many journalists. And we used the internet, when it was still very young, to post an announcement: “The first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will take place at MIT.” Admission was free, but you had to pick up a ticket on a Tuesday morning. All the tickets were gone. And the whole time, I was thinking – and I’m pretty sure everyone else was, too – that, at any moment, some grown-up would come in and tell us to stop and go home. But nobody did. And the next day, there were reports about it all over the world.
Question. Is there any award you remember with particular fondness? Answer. One that always comes to mind very quickly was the 2003 Biology Prize for the discovery of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. When you tell people [about it] – if you say the words slowly, one word at a time – it’s like watching an entire drama unfold, because every word changes the meaning of the story for them. And, when you get to the final word – “duck” – the whole story falls apart.
The article itself, it’s a spectacular piece of writing. It’s like Edgar Allan Poe. Oh my God, it’s beautifully told. The story is so crazy, yet it’s true and documented.
Question. What do you think the Ig Nobel Prizes will be like in 35 years? Answer. I hope they continue to grow, that small and large events are held in more countries. And [I hope] they use the essence of the Ig Nobel Prizes to get people to suddenly become curious about things that they thought they never would care about.
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