Gideon Gono, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, won the Ig Nobel prize for Mathematics in 2009. He was recognized for:
“giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000)”.
In 2008, Zimbabwe’s peak hyperinflation rate reached 79,600,000,000 %(79.6 billion %) per month. At this rate, nominal price of things would double every 24 hours. Hungary, in 1945-46, experienced inflation rate of 41.9 quadrillion percent (41,900,000,000,000,000)per month, a record unsurpassed: na bhuto, na bhavishyati.
Other Ig Nobel Prizes are just as interesting and deserving.
The PEACE prize went to Stephen Bolliger, Stephen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland:
“for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle”.
And the Economics Prize was awarded to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic Banks: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland:
“for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy”.