We have Ig-nition
Rice’s Wade Adams part of NPR’s upcoming Ig Nobel broadcast

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

The theme of the Ig Nobel ceremony seems to be the less said, the better, but just try to get Wade Adams to stop talking about it. 

	Wade Adams, right, director of Rice’s Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, delivers a 24/7 lecture at this year’s 19th First Annual Ig Nobels.

Adams, director of Rice’s Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, was delighted to be one of four scientists to deliver a 24/7 lecture at this year’s 19th First Annual Ig Nobels, the snarky ceremony that celebrates science while lampooning its high-minded conventions. The ceremony will be featured Nov. 27 on National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.”

At last month’s event at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass., Adams was challenged to explain nanotechnology in 24 seconds, and then define it in seven words. He did, thusly: “Nanotechnology — making small stuff do big things!”

Adams said the penalty for going overtime for either the 24/7 lecturers or the eight Ig Nobel winners, who were allowed a full minute to talk, was harsh. “They have a little girl in a very cute dress, who comes prancing out — right up next to the speaker — and says, ‘Please stop! I’m bored!’ as loud as she can, until the person shuts up.”

Rice’s Wade Adams, right, took part in a running poker game during a  performance piece, “The Big Bank Opera,” that punctuated this year’s  Ig Nobel Awards.

The Ig Nobels honor dubious achievements in science, and this year’s winners included a study on the effectiveness of beer bottles in bar fights — full or empty? — and a brassiere that quickly converts into a gas mask for two.

“It’s all extremely crazy and funny,” said Adams, who was on stage throughout as a bit player in a mini-opera, “The Big Bank Opera,” playing poker. “Occasionally, a Nobel Prize winner would drop in and play a few hands,” he said. Adams was thrilled to get Nobel Laureate and economist Paul Krugman to sign a phony $100,000 bill for him.

A webcast of this year’s Ig Nobels, put on by the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine, is available here. “Talk of the Nation” can be heard online and will be available as a podcast.

Read more about the ceremony at www.improbable.com/ig/2009/.