Muriel Bristol

Blanche Muriel Bristol (21 April 1888 – 15 March 1950) was a phycologist who worked at Rothamsted Research (then named Rothamsted Experimental Station) in 1919. Her research focused on the mechanisms by which algae acquire nutrients.

Statistics and tea

One day at Rothamsted, Ronald Fisher offered Bristol a cup of hot tea that he had just drawn from an urn. Bristol declined it, saying that she preferred the flavour when the milk was poured into the cup before the tea. Fisher scoffed that the order of pouring could not affect the flavour. Bristol insisted that it did and that she could tell the difference. Overhearing this debate, William Roach said, "Let's test her."

Fisher and Roach hastily put together an experiment to test Bristol's ability to identify the order in which the two liquids were poured into several cups. At the conclusion of this experiment, Roach proclaimed that "Bristol divined correctly more than enough of those cups into which tea had been poured first to prove her case". This has come to be known as the lady tasting tea experiment.

This incident led Fisher to do important work in the design of statistically valid experiments based on the statistical significance of experimental results. He developed Fisher's exact test to assess the probabilities and statistical significance of experiments.

Family life

Bristol was born on 21 April 1888, the daughter of Alfred Bristol, a commercial traveller, and Annie Eliza, née Davies. She studied botany and did a PhD on algae. Bristol married William Roach in 1923. She died in Bristol on 15 March 1950 of ovarian cancer.

Algae

The genus of green algae Muriella is named after her.