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Posted By Graham Watson
One for a Friday Afternoon
Sorry if it’s been done before, I couldn’t find it on the database.
How to quantify risk. We need an SI unit for Risk
Risk is hazard times likelihood.
Plagiarising mercilessly from the Naked Scientists web site, and Joel Veitch, (Rathergood.com). Who looked at ROSPA statistics for 2002 for, without statistics science is nothing right.
He looked for something which poses a decent amount of hazard to a large number of people, he settled on curtains as a hazard that a large number of people are exposed to on a daily basis.
Curtains caused 4080 injuries in 2002. Joel decided to use this as his basic unit of measurement, The Curtain.
DIY caused one million accidents that’s about 250 Curtains
Bread Bins caused 185 injuries about 46milliCurtains
Paper clips caused 10,000 injuries - 2.5 Curtains
Airbeds caused a centiCurtain of risk
Compasses and dividers caused no accidents in 2002 so Joel had to draw a veil (or curtain) over them until the next set of statistics for 2003 comes out, when the whole exercise can be conducted again. (Sounds like a great job creation programme to me)
Of course we’re assuming that the number of people exposed to all of these hazards is exactly the same, which of course it isn’t. So there’s plenty of scope for some more sophisticated mathematician out there to refine the calculations based on number of people exposed. But I like the idea of The Curtain as a unit of risk.
We could say about 25 million house holds in Britain
So 4,000 injuries 25 million exposure, say 25 million divided by 4,000 gives about 6,000, so anything that comes out with around 6,000 is a Curtain. But I’m sure you’ve all got better ideas about how to massage these data than I do. It’ll give us something to while away the weekend until we can get back to work.
Have a good weekend, and remember most accidents happen at home.
Graham
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Posted By Merv Newman
What a totally stupendous and silly idea. But I like it. Thanks
Reminded me of the SI uit for measuring beauty ; the Helen (applicable to both male and female. It depends on your point of view)
The Helen, measured at NTP, is a face capable of launching 1 000 ships. The milliHelen could only launch one ship.
Then we have the anti milliHelen - a face once used to launch a ship.
Merv
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Posted By Ron Hunter
I used to have an Aunty Milly and an Aunty Helen. Neither of them were oil paintings mind you. Thanks for the explanation Merv.
We decided an SI Unit was required for Bullsh*t.
Academics that we are, we came up with "bovirectals".
We deciced that exposure beyond an upper limit value of 10Bv (BWA) would enable us all to go home.
Have a good weekend everyone.
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Posted By crispin aspinall
There already is a unit for risk.
Risk is a function of consequence and likelihood.
Consequence can always be reduced to a monetary amount.
Likelihood is events per unit of time.
Risk can therefore be expressed as monetary amount per unit of time.
Perhaps pounds sterling per annum, or if you want it in SI units: Euros/année.
This unit is well used by the insurance industry in setting insurance premiums. You then have a choice, pay the premium and insure the risk or don't pay the premium and take it on board as a business risk.
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Posted By David Bannister
What density of curtain would be required to hide the face that sank a ship?
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
David
I think you are confusing a Helen with a Neleh!
Paul
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