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Saying that the scientist was clearly the best at bouncing in their friend group, the MacArthur Foundation selection committee announced today that physicist Dr. Brian Hargrove had won their prestigious $625,000 “genius” grant for bouncing a tennis ball so freaking high, like even higher than the roof of their house which is pretty tall.
“Dr. Hargrove greatly impressed the committee with his brilliance in the field of physics, as demonstrated when he bounced that ball higher than any of us had ever seen in our whole entire frickin’ lives,” MacArthur Fellows Vice President Cecilia A. Conrad said at a press conference this afternoon, adding that Brian honestly bounced the ball higher than their friend Dave McKinley, even though Dave is actually a few years older than Brian. “The committee is delighted to add Brian’s name to a long list of successful and talented scientists who can’t bounce a tennis ball even close to as high as Brian."
“Brian might even be better at bouncing than Mike Peterson, who’s probably the strongest physicist in our grant class and who was always the best at bouncing,” Conrad added, mentioning that Brian is also pretty fast and that he can jump pretty high, too. "Brian is awesome and one of the coolest friends I have.”
“Though this is a personal achievement, I can only think of all the super awesome bounces that this bounce will allow for in the future,” Hargrove said during his acceptance speech to all the coolest scientists in his class at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “Now that we can bounce the ball on top of Cecilia’s house, we can try bouncing it on top of the school, or the post office, or maybe bounce it and have Doug’s dog jump up and grab it with his ferocious teeth. The possibilities are endless.”
“I really like bouncing,” added Hargrove.
Among other winners of the “genius” grant this year is famed chemist Dr. Andrew Mendelsohn, who recently mixed milk, Pepsi, and cranberry juice cocktail to make a weird new drink that looks gross but is actually pretty good when you try it.
