The Pineapple Award is the Chinese version of the "IG Nobel Prize". Publications are recognized that first make people laugh and then very quickly make them think. The award is presented to projects that are presented in an unusual way and encourage the audience to interact with science and research. With the motto of "Salute to Curiosity“, the award was presented in Whenzou, China. A live in-person event could not take place in China due to the epidemic situation.
The team of physicists of the university of Bonn had built a beer mat throwing machine especially to demonstrate their findings. They recorded measurement flights of the beer mats with a high-speed camera and presented this in a video. For the online award ceremony, the three physicists were asked to submit the video they produced with uni-bonn.tv.
Here it is: https://youtu.be/5J-yuxj6hTs
Press release from July 27th 202 about the scientifc study:
https://www.uni-bonn.de/de/neues/180-2021
Funding: The study was supported by funds from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Publication: Johann Ostmeyer, Christoph Schürmann & Carsten Urbach: Beer Mats make bad Frisbees; The European Physical Journal Plus;
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01732-1
Contact: Johann Ostmeyer, working group Prof. Urbac, Email: ostmeyer@hiskp.uni-bonn.de
Prof. Dr. Carsten Urbach, Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics, Email: urbach@hiskp.uni-bonn.de