F. R. Farmer
Encyclopedia
F. Reg Farmer OBE
, FRS, (1914–2001) was a British
nuclear regulator (working for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
's Safety and Reliability Directorate, SRD) and later an academic at Imperial College London
.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, FRS, (1914–2001) was a British
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
nuclear regulator (working for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of nuclear fusion power. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and was formerly chaired by Lady Barbara Judge CBE...
's Safety and Reliability Directorate, SRD) and later an academic at Imperial College London
Imperial College London
Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
.
Accomplishments
- He considered the public acceptability of riskRiskRisk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
, (e.g. from nuclear reactors), arguing that a whole spectrum of events needs to be considered - not just the Maximum Credible Accident, but also those of less consequence but which were much more probable.
- He used examples such as hill walking to define a spectrum of risks which people found acceptable.
- He embodied this in a variation of (Acceptable Risk Frequency/Event Probability) with (Consequence), which is usually called the Farmer Curve.
- Farmer postulated a near-inverse variation as acceptable - thus events which have twice the consequence must be approximately half as frequent, or less. The Farmer Curve is usually plotted as a straight line in log-log co-ordinates.