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    This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, and Other WTF Research
    Unavailable
    This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, and Other WTF Research
    Unavailable
    This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, and Other WTF Research
    Ebook448 pages3 hours

    This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, and Other WTF Research

    By Marc Abrahams

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Often, thinking seriously about outlandish problems is the only way to make progress in science. The rest of the time, it’s hilarious. Marc Abrahams, the founder of the famous Ig Nobel prizes, offers an addictive, wryly funny exposé of the oddest, most imaginative, and just plain improbable research from around the world. He looks into why books on ethics are more likely to get stolen and how randomly promoting people (rather than doing it based on merit) improves their work. He also shares the findings of weird experiments, from whether Vegas lap dancers earn higher tips at a certain time of the month to how mice were once outfitted with parachutes to find a better way to murder tree snakes. Abrahams’ tour through this strangest of strange science will first make you laugh, and then make you think about your world in a completely new way. Marc Abrahams, the founder of the Ig Nobel prize, offers an addictive, wryly funny exposé of the most improbable research from around the world, from why one psychologist insisted it was better to promote people randomly to whether Vegas lap dancers get higher tips at certain times of the month. As you travel from the bizarre to the profound, Abrahams will make you laugh, and then think about the world in a completely new way.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOneworld Publications
    Release dateSep 1, 2012
    ISBN9781780741147
    Unavailable
    This Is Improbable: Cheese String Theory, Magnetic Chickens, and Other WTF Research
    Author

    Marc Abrahams

    Marc Abrahams writes the 'Improbable Research' column for the Guardian and is the author of This Is Improbable (978-1-85168-975-0). He is editor of the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research and founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are presented annually at Harvard. Abrahams and the Igs have been covered by the BBC, New Scientist, Daily Mail, The Times, and numerous other outlets internationally. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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    Reviews for This Is Improbable

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    • 4/5
      Marc Abrahams was the founder of the infamous and hilarious Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded each year for research that "first makes you laugh and then makes you think." Which probably gives you a reasonable idea of the contents of this collection of short pieces, all of which originally appeared in The Guardian. Each one is a little glimpse of some odd, amusing, or hard-to-believe piece of research. (E.g.: a study of people's reactions to someone walking around with a shoelace untied, an analysis of the history of Soviet underwear, or a look at the attitude of measurement experts to cheap plastic rulers.) Some of the subjects are clearly just bad science, others are perfectly legitimate research into offbeat topics, and a lot seem to fall somewhere in between. It's entertaining to dip into -- which is probably better than reading it all in a lump -- and Abrahams writes with a pleasantly sly sense of humor. I didn't find the collection, overall, to be quite as much fun as I was hoping for, though, I think mainly because each piece is so short that there's not a lot of room for the "thinking" part. Mostly, I get the sense of him pointing a finger at some scientific oddity or other and basically going, "Here's a quirky thing! Did you see it being quirky? Great, then, bye!"
    • 3/5
      I had high hopes for this book, coming from the founder of the Ig Noble Prizes, but alas it wan’t quite the chatty, easy to read format I’d expected. This is, in fact, a collection of his columns from The Guardian, slightly expanded upon and cited out the wazoo. This makes it an excellent reference for those times when you’re specifically looking for bizarre, twisted or otherwise outlandish research, but rather less excellent if you’re looking for an enjoyable sit-down read.Still, it’s a comprehensive (one would hope) collection of some of the most head-scratching research being done out there in the name of science, and if you’re willing to read through the dry reportage, a few amusing facts. My two favourites were the patent issued in the USA in 1977 for the comb-over – yes, the one you’re thinking of, that oh-so-sexy and not-at-all-obvious disguise for male pattern baldness. And an Australian patent in 2001 for a “Circular Transportation Facilitation Device”. Which is, you guessed it, the wheel.A more timely and relevant invention for us in these pandemic days is the US patent awarded in 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks”. A/K/A a bra, that in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks. It was awarded an Ig Noble prize in 2009 for Public Health, but one has to wonder just how Ig Noble the invention remains?
    • 1/5
      (ebook edition) nonfiction. I was hoping for something more like 'freakonomics' but these were inconsequential little blurbs, summaries of off-the-wall studies. I only skimmed the first chapter or so, but it wasn't catching my interest at all.