THE IG NOBEL PRIZE: 2005 

Please see the IG NOBEL PRIZE (1991 - 1994) post of 10/23/19 for an explanation of this prize.

Partial list of IG NOBEL prize winners:  2005 

Economics - Presented to Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the work day.

Fluid Dynamics - Presented to jointly to Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany, and the University of Oulu, Finland, and Jozsef Gal of Lorand Eotvos University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Poop - Calculations on Avian Defecation."

Literature - Presented to the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters - General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Maryam Sani Abacha, Barrister Jon A. Mbeki, Esq. - and others - each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.

Physics - Presented to John Mainstone and Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, for patiently conducting the so-called pitch drop experiment, which began in the year  1927 - in which a drop of congealed black tar pitch has been slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years.