The Annals of Improbable Research
(a Men’s Club Breakfast)

Sunday, February 1st, 9:45 am (after minyan)

Building, and personally testing, a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. Using magnets to levitate a frog. Giving birth to Murphy’s Law. Writing a medical report titled “The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow.” Demonstrating that beer froth obeys the mathematical Law of Exponential Decay. Inventing a washing machine for cats and dogs. Assessing scrotal asymmetry in man and in ancient sculpture. Patenting the wheel in the year 2001.

Each of these accomplishments has been rewarded with an Ig Nobel Prize. Join the Men’s Club for breakfast and the opportunity to meet Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

Marc is the father and master of ceremonies of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think. The Prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates at a gala ceremony that is held each October at Harvard University and broadcast on National Public Radio and on the Internet.

Recent IgNobel Prize winners have included:

• For Economics, Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making
  it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings,
  bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.
• For Chemistry,  Yukio Hirose of Kanazawa University, for his chemical
  investigation of a bronze statue, in the city of Kanazawa, that fails to
  attract pigeons.
• and for Psychology, Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli of the
  University of Rome, and Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University, for their
  discerning report “Politicians’ Uniquely Simple Personalities.”

The Washington Post called Marc “the nation’s guru of academic grunge.” The Journal of the American Medical Association called him “the Puck of Science.” (He has also been called many other things.)

In addition to editing the magazine, Marc writes a monthly newsletter called mini-AIR, a weekly column for the British newspaper The Guardian, and a daily blog. The magazine’s editorial board of more than 50 distinguished scientists includes eight Nobel Laureates, IQ record holder Marilyn Vos Savant, and a convicted felon.

Marc is author of the new book “The Ig Nobel Prizes,” published by Orion Books. He edited (and wrote much of) the science humor anthologies “The Best of Annals of Improbable Research,” “Der Einfluss von Erdnussbutter auf die Erdrotation” and “Sex As a Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble (and other improbabilities).”

From 1990-1994, Marc was the editor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results. In 1994, after the magazine’s publisher decided to abandon it, the founders and entire editorial staff (1955-1994) of the Journal abandoned the publisher, and immediately created AI.

Cost per person = $6.00 (can you believe it?!)

Please email srbaum@rcn.com or jan@templealiyah.com or call the synagogue office at 781-444-8522. And although we do appreciate your rsvp, please do know that you may just register that morning at the door.