In the Nobel Prize parody, the winners of the "Ig Nobel Prize", which is given to unique research, were announced, and from Japan, we investigated the mechanism to naturally avoid collisions between pedestrians using "Walking smartphone". Researchers at Kyoto Institute of Technology received the "Power Science Award".
Japanese award for 15 consecutive years
The "Ig Nobel Prize" is an award started by an American scientific magazine as a parody of the Nobel Prize in 1991, and is given to research that makes people laugh and think.
The award ceremony is held at Harvard University every year, but due to the influence of the new coronavirus, the award ceremony was held online this year, following last year.
This year, a research group led by Assistant Professor Hisashi Murakami of Kyoto Institute of Technology received the "Power Science Award" from Japan for a study on how pedestrians can walk without hitting other people.
Assistant Professor Murakami and his colleagues experimented with how the movement of pedestrians changes with and without the so-called “walking smartphone” that operates a smartphone while walking.
As a result, when the attention was distracted by "Walking smartphone", the movements of the surrounding people were disturbed and they were about to collide, confirming the importance of "anticipating" the movements of the other pedestrians. It means that.
The organizer of the Ig Nobel Prize said, "I realized that it is important to pay attention to the people around me" about the reason for the award.
This is the 15th consecutive year that Japanese people have won the Ig Nobel Prize.
In addition, winners were announced in nine fields, the "Economics Award" for research investigating the relationship between obesity and corruption of politicians, and the "Insects Award" for research on how to exterminate cockroaches on board a submarine. We received each award.