Improbable Research

The Ig® Nobel Prizes Archive

Here you can find an archive of highlights, programs, photos, videos, and more from past Ig Nobel Prize Ceremonies, dating back to 1991. Find it all (or at least links to it all) right here on this page!

Each year's ceremony starting from 1997 has its own page:

2011 : 2010 : 2009 : 2008 : 2007
2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003 : 2002
2001 : 2000 : 1999 : 1998 : 1997

Ivo Mej produced this six-minute history of the Ig Nobel Prizes in 2011.

And each year has its own page of eyewitness accounts and press clippings:

2011 : 2010 : 2009 : 2008
2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003
2002 : 2001 : 2000 : 1999-1994

Watch the video of Ig Nobel Ceremonies dating back to 2003:

2011 : 2010 : 2009 : 2008
2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003

Every year since 1994, NPR's Science Friday program has broadcast a specially-edited version of that year's Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony on the day after Thanksgiving. Listen to those shows:

2011 : 2010 : 2009
2008 : 2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004
2003 : 2002 : 2001 : 2000 : 1999
1998 : 1997 : 1996 : 1995 : 1994

Every ceremony has premiered its own mini-opera since 1996. They are written by Marc Abrahams, and performed by professional opera singers and Nobel Laureates during the ceremony.

2011: "Chemist in a Coffee Shop"
2010: "The Bacterial Opera" [video]
2009: "The Big Bank Opera" [video: Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4]
2008: "Redundancy, Again" [libretto]
2007: "Chicken Versus Egg" [libretto]
2006: "Inertia Makes The World Go Around"
2005: "The Count of Infinity" [libretto (PDF)]
2004: "The Atkins Diet Opera" [libretto (PDF)]
2003: "Atom and Eve" [libretto]
2002: "The Jargon Opera" [libretto]
2001: "The Wedding Complex" [libretto]
2000: "The Brain Food Opera" [libretto]
1999: "The Seedy Opera" [libretto]
1998: "La Forza Del Duct Tape [libretto]
1997: "Il Kaboom Grosso" [libretto]
1996: "Lament Del Cockroach" [libretto]

Every year, one issue of the Annals of Improbable Research magazine is devoted to coverage of that year's Ig winners and the associated Ceremony.

There are several books (in several languages) about the Ig Nobel Prizes with copiously juicy details about the winners. The Ig Nobel Prizes and its various sequels, The Best of Annals of Improbable Research.

Find these and many others in our Improbable Bookstore.

	1998 winner Troy Hurtubise holds aloft his Ig Nobel Prize. Troy returned to the 1999 ceremony, and gave one of the Ig lectures two days later.
	11-year old Emily Rosa, the youngest person ever to publish a research paper in a major medical journal, delivered a keynote address at the '98 Ig ceremony, as Nobellian William Lipscomb looked on. Emily returned to the 1999 ceremony, and gave one of the 1999 Ig Lectures two days later.
	Among those who helped honor the 1998 winners were (left to right) Nobel Laureates Sheldon Glashow and Dudley Herschbach, magician/science observer James ("the Amazing") Randi, Harvard Physics Professor Roy Glauber, Nobellian Richard Roberts, and referee John Barrett.