The 14 April 2011 issue of my local newspaper contained a short note about a physics major at Yale University who was killed when her long hair became entangled in the machine lathe she was using. That was a tragic accident, but completely preventable. Industry tends to be careful about safety issues, partly because of liability problems and partly because a higher accident rate increases the cost of workers’ compensation insurance. In my experience, academic institutions tend to be more casual about safety, and there seems to be the assumption that each researcher will deal with safety issues in his or her lab.
The accident at Yale reminded me of something that happened sometime between 1961 and 1966, when I was head of the physics department at Montana State University in Bozeman. The Physics Teacher published a picture of a young woman with long hair operating a drill press. That picture produced a strong reaction in me, and I had two pictures posed with one of our physics majors. One showed her leaning over the lathe with her long hair dragging on the chuck, and the other showed her in the same position with her hair in a kerchief. The Physics Teacher published both pictures, one labeled “This” and the other “Not This.” Unfortunately, such basic safety measures get forgotten.
I urge PHYSICS TODAY and its readers to give attention to matters of laboratory safety. We should never have another accident like the one at Yale.
