Lesson 3 Laugh First and Then Think
The Ig Nobel Prize
“What happens ____ you walk backward while you are carrying a cup of coffee?”
Han Jiwon, a Korean high school student, did ____ on this topic in 2015.
Is this research project good enough to win ____ Nobel Prize?
Maybe not. But how about an ____ Nobel Prize?
He won one ____ 2017 for this fun research.
The Ig Nobel ____ are awarded for discoveries that “first make one laugh and then think.”
They were started in 1991 by AIR magazine to increase people’s interest in science by honoring the ____ and the imaginative.
The prizes are presented
The prizes are presented by real Nobel ____ in Sanders Theater at Harvard University.
The room is ____ filled with people who are eager to cheer for the brave scientists with their “laughable” research.
The ____ Navy won the Ig Nobel Prize for Peace in 2000.
To save money, the ____ made its sailors shout, “Bang!” instead of using real bombs.
Is that funny enough for you ____ laugh out loud?
Andre Geim also won ____ award that year.
He ____ in floating a live frog in the air by using magnets.
“In my experience, if people don’t have a sense of humor, they are usually not very good scientists,” he said ____ he accepted his award.
If that still does not bring a smile to your ____ how about this?
In 2005,
____ 2005, Gauri Nanda won the Ig Nobel Prize in Economics for inventing an alarm clock.
It keeps running away until the sleeper finally gets out of ____
Not only the winners’ fun studies but also ____ ceremony for the Ig Nobel Prizes makes people laugh.
There are a number of interesting ____ that keep people from getting bored.
The opening and closing speeches are just two words each: “Welcome. ____ and “Goodbye. Goodbye.”
If someone talks for too long, an eight-year-old girl called ____ Sweetie Poo shouts repeatedly, “Please stop! I’m bored.”
Each winner ____ ten trillion Zimbabwean dollars, which is worth less than one U.S. dollar.
____ paper planes is another fun tradition.
The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony ends ____ the words, “If you didn’t win a prize—and if you did—better luck next year!”
____ winners do not receive lots of money.
And the awards are not great honors like ____ Nobel Prizes.
But ____ Ig Nobel Prizes make science a lot more fun!