SDF

Visionary : Marc ABRAHAMS [Founder, Ig Nobel Prize / Editor, Improbable Research / Columnist, The Guardian]

Research—real research, the kind that looks at questions no one has yet answered—can seem strange, humorous, even silly. After something has been discovered, we call it a "breakthrough." We remember only its newfound importance.
We forget how strange, how goofy, how unthinkable that idea felt just a short while ago.
The history of science and technology—and of the industries built on them—is a long list of such "breakthroughs." That's what we teach our children; that's what we tell each other.
Korean science and technology have grown so dramatically in size and influence that there's pressure to concentrate our research efforts on things we already know to be important.
If we want to keep on developing new things, though, we need to tolerate, and maybe even sometimes celebrate, research on questions that make people laugh, then think.