Who Says Theoretical Science Is Toast?

If proving that toast always falls on the buttered side isn’t worth a scientific award, what is?

Professor Robert Matthews of Aston University in England went sadly without recognition for his study, “Tumbling Toast, Murphy’s Law and the Fundamental Constants.”

Until now.

Matthews received the Ig Nobel Prize for physics this month in the Sixth First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University.

The awards spoof the real Nobels, also being announced this month. Handed out by former winners of the Nobel Prize, the Ig Nobels honor “achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced.”

Other winners included Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway, who got the Ig Nobel in biology for their study of the effect of ale, garlic and sour cream on the appetite of leeches.

George Goble of Purdue University won in chemistry for lighting a barbecue grill in three seconds using charcoal and liquid oxygen.

And Ellen Kleist of Greenland and Harald Moi of Norway took the Ig Nobel in public health for their research into the transmission of gonorrhea through inflatable dolls.

Thanks to them, said Marc Abrahams, organizer of the Ig Nobels, people now know “that when you date an inflatable doll, you’re dating everyone who ever dated that inflatable doll.”

Despite the humor in the awards, “There’s a half-serious point, which is that science is enjoyable,” said Abrahams, editor of the tongue-in-cheek scientific journal The Annals of Improbable Research.

Besides, he said, “It just seemed there were an awful lot of people who believed they should be honored for something and weren’t.”

Like Dr. Robert J. Genco of the University of Buffalo, who showed that financial strain may lead to periodontal disease. He won the Ig Nobel in economics. Or Don Featherstone of Fitchburg, Mass., for inventing the plastic pink flamingo. He got the Ig Nobel in art.

The awards were handed out by genuine Nobel laureates Sheldon Glashow (physics, 1979), Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), William Lipscomb (chemistry, 1976) and others.

Not all the winners necessarily aspired to the Ig Nobel.

Matthews described his buttered-toast study as “a bit of work I did in my spare time when there was nothing on the telly.”

Still, he said, “I’m glad they’re recognizing work that tries to put some fun back into science. These days, there aren’t many laughs to be had out of theoretical physics.”

Moi quipped in his acceptance speech that his research on gonorrhea and inflatable dolls “may easily be punctured.”

But not all of the work is whimsical. Studying the appetite of leeches, for example, can help determine how they might be used effectively in surgery.

“Many advances in the history of science were like that,” Abrahams said.

And although the Ig Nobels declare themselves to be nonpartisan, some make a political statement. The Ig Nobel for peace this year was given to the president of France, Jacques Chirac, for commemorating the 50th anniversary of the nuclear blast at Hiroshima by conducting atomic tests in the Pacific.

The Ig Nobel for medicine went to tobacco industry executives “for their unshakable discovery . . . that nicotine is not addictive.”

“If you win an Ig Nobel Prize, in one way or another you truly deserve it,” Abrahams said.