The 2013 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Thursday, September 12, 6:00 pm** Sanders Theater, Harvard University

Official Delegations

If you will be attending the ceremony in a group of five (5) or more persons, and would like your group to be officially recognized during the ceremony as an Official Delegation, first obtain tickets, then register with Louise Sacco, Official Overseer of the Delegations (phone: 781-690-6621, email: LouiseSacco AT gmail.com). The deadline for registering as a delegation is Friday, August 30, 2013.

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Webcast

The ceremony will, as usual, be webcast live, right here (and also on other web sites!). Schedule:

• 5:35 pm (US eastern time) — The webcast begins.
• 5:40 pm —  Deborah Henson-Conant's pre-ceremony mini-concert.
• 6:00 pm — The ceremony begins.

There will be webcast-watching parties in Paris, France; Atlanta, USA; and many other places. (And a special party will happen in Leiden, the Netherlands, two days after the ceremony.)

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Ceremony Details

Ten New Ig Nobel Prize winners will be announced and introduced.

The winners will physically receive their prizes, and a handshake, from these genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates:

• Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986)
• Eric Maskin (economics, 2007)
• Roy Glauber (physics, 2005)
• Frank Wilczek (physics, 2004)
• Sheldon Glashow (physics, 1979)
• and others to be announced

The theme of this year's ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: FORCE.

In addition to the awarding of the 2013 Ig Nobel Prizes, the ceremony will include a variety of momentously inconsequential events. Among them:

• Pre-Pre-Ceremony Concert (in the lobby, 5:00-5:30 pm) by the Boston Squeezebox Ensemble
• Pre-Ceremony Mega-Micro Concert (in the theater, 5:40-5:55 pm), "Show of Force", by electric-harp dynamo Deborah Henson-Conant, founder & curator of the Burnt Food Museum
• Two grand Paper Airplane Deluges, one at ceremony's beginning, the other at the midpoint
• The 24/7 LECTURES, in which several of the world's top thinkers will each explain her or his subject twice:
  FIRST: a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS*
  AND THEN: a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS
  • Beatrice Golomb (Professor of Medicine, UCSD). Topic: CHOCOLATE
  • Dudley Herschbach (Nobel Laureate, Chemistry): TORQUE
  • Melissa Franklin (Professor of Physics, Harvard). Topic: FORCE
  • and one or two others TBA
• 
  World premiere of "THE BLONSKY DEVICE"
  • a mini-opera inspired by the life and work (US patent #3216423, "APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING THE BIRTH OF A CHILD BY CENTRIFUGAL FORCE") of 1999 Ig Nobel Prize winners George and Charlotte Blonsky
  • directed, arranged and orchestrated by Henry Akona
  • story and lyrics by Marc Abrahams, music by Gounod, Beethoven and Rossini
  • Starring:
  • Maria Ferrante, soprano, as Charlotte Blonsky
  • Martin Kelly, tenor, as George Blonsky
  • Philip Lima, baritone, as The Zookeeper
  • Miles Rind, bass, as The Patent Examiner
  • with an all-star biomedical orchestra, "The Forces of Nature", composed of Harvard and MIT physicians and researchers:
  • Accordion: Thomas Michel (Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine)
  • Violin: Ted Sharpe (computational biologist at the Broad Institute)
  • Cello: David Fisher (Harvard Medical School Professor and Chair of Dermatology)
  • Flute: Elizabeth Henske (HMS Professor of Medicine)
  • Bassoon: Ben Steinhorn (HMS MD-PhD student)
  • Clarinet: Abby Schiff (HMS MD-PhD student)
  • Trombone: Chris Ramirez (Harvard College undergrad)
  • Percussion: David Gootenberg (HMS MD-PhD student)
  • with a special on-minute lecture, "The Biomechanical Forces Involved in Human Childbirth", by Daniel Lieberman (co-winner of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for physics, for explaining why pregnant women don't tip over)
• Returning Ig Nobel Prize winners:
  • TBA
• Ceremonial music by Nicholas Carstoiu and The Ig Leaves
• Salutes to the Audience Delegations
• The Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest
• Two special Moments of Science, by performing chemists Daniel Rosenberg and Joost Bonsen
• Karen Hopkin, creator of the Studmuffins of Science Calendar
• Gala Introduction of the Audience Delegations
• All speeches will be brief, and thus especially delightful, with assistance from 8-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo.
• The Minordomos will make most things run smoothly on stage.
• The V-Chip Monitor, Prominent New York Attorney William J. Maloney, will guard against offensive words, sounds, thoughts, or imaginings.
• The Traditional "Welcome, Welcome" Speech
• The Traditional "Goodbye, Goodbye" Speech
• Other wondrous things

* Time limits to be enforced by Mr. John Barrett, the Ig Nobel Referee

- See more at: http://www.improbable.com/ig/2013/#sthash.GTIFcnjU.dpuf