According to news reports and CNA TV , the recent Ig Nobel humor awards at Harvard awarded a team of George Tech academics with this year’s physics prize for, well, it’s hilarious and I guess its serious, too. Here is what happened:
''Two Taiwanese researchers share Ig Nobel physics award for their well-pissed ‘bladder’ work ‘’ was the headline.
An academic paper by two Taiwanese researchers has won one of this year’s humorous yet serious Ig Nobel awards at Harvard University for their well-pissed bladder work
CHINESE-LANGUAGE NEWS STORY HERE FROM TAIWAN MEDIA WITH PHOTO
cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/20 … 394-1.aspx
Patricia Yang (楊佩良) and David Hu (胡立德) shared the physics prize with colleagues Jonathan Pham and Jerome Choo (朱樂珉) for ‘‘testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).’’
Their academic paper was titled “Duration of Urination Does Not Change With Body Size.”
Yang is from Taichung and grew up there, and graduated from NTU with a doube major in a variety of high IQ engineering terms which I cannot understand, like quantam mech tech double fold bladder control mechanisms and dismechanisms. Kidding. I have no idea what she studied. The CNA story does not say. Or does it?
"The Ig Nobel prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think,” a Harvard spokesman said.
When asked why the ‘‘piss’’ paper was selected for an Ig Nobel this year, he said:
“For the rest of their lives, every time people around the world think about emptying their bladders, they will think abut the Ig Nobels of 2015.”
Their award? According to AP wire news in the China Post today: a 10 trillion dollar Zimbabwean dollar bill, worth just a few cents apparently. The team received their Ig Noble gong from a real NOBEL PRIZE winner, the 2007 economics laureate, Eric Maskin.