Lady Tasting Tea

[Stephen J Bensman]

I cannot resist this.  Another episode from my book.  My wife loves this
story, and we visited the courtyard near the Sample House at Rothamsted,
where this experiment took place.

 

Stephen J. Bensman

LSU Libraries

Louisiana State University

Baton Rouge, LA   70803

USA

notsjb at lsu.edu

 

...Fisher summarized his experimental methodology in The Design of
Experiments, which was published in seven editions from 1935 to 1960.
Yates and Mather (1963, pp.94 and 113) state that this was the first
book explicitly devoted to this subject, and  it amplified and extended
the somewhat cursory and elementary exposition of this topic in
Statistical Methods.   Design of Experiments was also not mathematical
but a discussion of the basic logical principles of experimentation, and
it opens with the famous experiment conducted by Fisher shortly after he
arrived at Rothamsted to test the assertion of a lady scientist, B.
Muriel Bristol, that she could tell by the taste whether the tea or the
milk had been poured into the cup first.  Fisher's daughter, J. F. Box
(1978, p. 134), reports in her biography of her father, that, although
never reported, Bristol not only passed the test but so impressed the
male scientist, who helped Fisher set up the experiment, that he married
her.  In his book entitled The Lady Testing Tea Salsburg (2001, pp. 1-8)
reports that he was told in the late 1960s by H. Fairfield Smith, who
had personally witnessed the experiment, that Bristol got every cup
right, thereby ending any question of probability and possibly
preventing Fisher from reporting this fact in his book.     

 

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