I know! The odds are astronomical. And that's why it was so comical at the time.
Thanks for the back-of-the-envelope statistics.
J
Debbie
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU]
On Behalf Of ILPI Support
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2017 10:01 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Color-blindness as a lab safety concern
Given the incidence of red-green colorblindness (about 8% of men and 0.5% of women in those of northern European ancestry per
https://nei.nih.gov/health/color_blindness/facts_about ), I'd say that this group should definitely think about setting up an office lottery pool.
If I remember my statistics right, you multiply probabilities for independent events (like rolling dice). So a group composed of four men and one woman would be (0.08)(0.08)(0.08)(0.08)(0.005) = 0.00000020480 which is 0.00002048% probability
that this could happen. Taking the reciprocal, that's 1 out of 4,882,813 odds.
For comparison, the odds of getting 4 numbers and the PowerBall is 1 in 913,129 (but getting all 5 numbers and the Powerball is 1 in 292,201,388).
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An anecdote:
When I worked in aerospace, a colleague described a situation in which he and a group of fellow electrical engineers and electricians were working on wiring up a control panel for a nuclear power plant. They got it all hooked up and tested the system and it
didn't work. Checked connections, etc. - nothing. Repeat. Finally decide to go to lunch and think about what might be wrong. Over lunch, one of the group mentions that he's color blind. You guessed it - turns out the entire crew, including my friend,
were color blind and the wiring was all color-coded. They finally found an admin person with normal color vision who helped them make sure the proper wire got connected where it was supposed to be connected.
My spouse is color-blind - it makes for some amusing family stories.
Debbie M. Decker, CCHO, ACS Fellow
Past Chair, Division of Chemical Health and Safety
University of California, Davis
(530)754-7964
(530)304-6728
dmdecker**At_Symbol_Here**ucdavis.edu
Birkett's hypothesis: "Any chemical reaction
that proceeds smoothly under normal conditions,
can proceed violently in the presence of an idiot."
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of pzavon**At_Symbol_Here**ROCHESTER.RR.COM
Oh, my! Yes, color blindness is a safety issue in the lab and lots of other place.
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--- This e-mail is from DCHAS-L, the e-mail list of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety. For more information about the list, contact the Divisional secretary at
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