Steven L. Gersen  Martha B. Keagle
Editors

2013

Third Edition

In April 2011, the website The DNA Exchange ran a story about the origin of our convention of referring to the short and long arms of chromosomes as “p” and “q.” Several possible explanations for how this usage came into being were presented in a somewhat whimsical manner. Did we really go with p from the French petite and q because it alphabetically follows p? Was there really a “French vs. English” argument? Was it supposed to be p and g(from the French grande ) but changed due to a typesetting error? Was Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p + q = 1) invoked?