From: Todd E Van Hoosear (vanhoose@manetheren.cl.msu.edu)
Date: 10/23/03
Every year, the Annals of Improbable Research (formerly the Journal of
Irreproducible Results--but that was apparently too hard to spell and
perhaps something _was_ reproduced) hosts the Ig Nobel Prizes. After the
formal award ceremony, the prize winners are invited back a day or two
later for informal talks. This year's physics prize was awarded to a team
of researchers in Australia for their research paper "An Analysis of the
Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces." Dr. John F Culvenor
presented the research at the talk on behalf of the other authors.
His presentation and research focused on how to get sheep in and out of
shearing sheds efficiently. This is not a small problem, as these sheep
weigh as much as people and they're typically not all too happy about
losing their coat.
At the end of the presentation, with force diagrams of both the sheep and
the humans on the overhead project, one astute audience member suggested
that the paper was mistitled. It should have been called, she observed,
"An Analysis of the SHEAR Forces..."
[This is original. I sat in the audience when the question was asked.]
- Todd
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```'' T o d d E V a n H o o s e a r
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"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends."
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