[Hi-LaL]

Murphy's laws origin


The following article was excerpted from The Desert Wings
March 3, 1978

Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 at North Base.

It was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981, (a project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.

One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible and said, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it."

The contractor's project manager kept a list of "laws" and added this one, which he called Murphy's Law.

Actually, what he did was take an old law that had been around for years in a more basic form and give it a name.

Shortly afterwards, the Air Force doctor (Dr. John Paul Stapp) who rode a sled on the deceleration track to a stop, pulling 40 Gs, gave a press conference. He said that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it.
Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. Murphy's Law was born.

The Northrop project manager, George E. Nichols, had a few laws of his own. Nichols' Fourth Law says, "Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome."

The doctor, well-known Col. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp's Ironical Paradox, which says, "The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."

Nichols is still around. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, he's the quality control manager for the Viking project to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars.
Murphy's Law or Sod's Law?

While I admit that the name of Murphy's laws is a pleasant one as is the story of how it came to light, but the original name for 'if anything can go wrong it will' was sod's law because it would happen to any poor sod who needed such a catastrophic event the least. It also removes the ability to say "I coined this phrase!" because sod's law has been around long before any living man and has existed in many forms for hundreds of years. In the English County of Yorkshire I know it to have been around for generations because it has been passed through several Yorkshire families I know. But this original name is dying out because sod over here is a cursory so is not used much. Murphy's on the other hand is nothing insulting or lacking in hope I hope this clears any problems up and while this maybe hard to come to terms with, think about it, would such an obvious piece of logic have only come about in the second half of the 20th century????
Chris Monkman In the late 1960's I read an article that was photocopied from a magazine where I saw the term "Murphy's Law" coined. Should I say, I believe the term was coined in this article. It had a photo of a bearded man in the upper right corner. The article began simply by describing all the things that had gone wrong in Murphy's life. Near the end of the first section of the article it described the formalization of Murphy's Law, as Murphy was waiting for the pending birth of his first child.

Later in the article other formulations/corollaries of Murphy's law were described. The most memorable one was the mathematical formulation. It was pictured in the text as 1 + 1 -> 2, where the -> was a hand with the index finger pointing to the right. The text defined -> as "hardly every equals".

What prompted me to write this was the foot note on this page, where the author of this comment indicated that the law was not formalized at Edwards Air Force Base, but rather another source.

To the best of my memory, it was in or about the fall of 1968, I saw the photo copied article that presented Murphy's Law. I do not remember the magazine or it's date.

[Misafir]

• If anything can go wrong, it will
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong
• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
• If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something
• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw
• Mother nature is a bitch.
• Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics
  Things get worse under pressure.
• The Murphy Philosophy
  Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.
• Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws
  Everything goes wrong all at once
• Murphy's Constant
  Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
• Murphy's Law of Research
  Enough research will tend to support whatever theory
• Research supports a specific theory depending on the amount of funds dedicated to it.
• In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.

[Misafir]

• All the good ones are taken.
  
• If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. (corr. to 1)
  
• The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you.
  
• Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant.
  
• The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to how much you love them.
  
• Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.
  
• The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of it.
  
• Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
  
• Nice guys (girls) finish last.
  
• If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
  
• Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is the minute they find someone else.
  
• The more beautiful the woman is who loves you, the easier it is to leave her with no hard feelings.
  
• Nothing improves with age.
  
• No matter how many times you've had it, if it's offered take it, because it'll never be quite the same again.
  
• Sex has no calories.
  
• Sex takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
  
• There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
  
• Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
  
• No sex with anyone in the same office.
  
• Sex is like snow; you never know how many inches you are going to get or how long it is going to last.
  
• A man in the house is worth two in the street.
  
• If you get them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
  
• Virginity can be cured.
  
• When a man's wife learns to understand him, she usually stops listening to him.
  
• Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
  
• The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can't stand years later.
  
• Sex is dirty only if it's done right.
  
• It is always the wrong time of month.
  
• The best way to hold a man is in your arms.
  
• When the lights are out, all women are beautiful.
  
• Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won't either.
• Sow your wild oats on Saturday night -- Then on Sunday pray for crop failure.
  
• The younger the better.
• The game of love is never called off on account of darkness.
  
• It was not the apple on the tree but the pair on the ground that caused the trouble in the garden.
  
• Sex discriminates against the shy and the ugly.
  
• Before you find your handsome prince, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs.
  
• There may be some things better than sex, and some things worse than sex. But there is nothing exactly like it.
  
• Love your neighbor, but don't get caught.
  
• Love is a hole in the heart.
  
• If the effort that went in research on the female bosom had gone into our space program, we would now be running hot-dog stands on the moon.
  
• Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
  
• Do it only with the best.
  
• Sex is a three-letter word which needs some old-fashioned four-letter words to convey its full meaning.
  
• One good turn gets most of the blankets.
  
• You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
  
• Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
  
• It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
  
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.....unless in the mood.
  
• Never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
  
• Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
  
• Never argue with a women when she's tired -- or rested.
  
• A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't.
  
• What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.
  
• It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
  
• Never say no.
  
• A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn't love her.
  
• Folks playing leapfrog must complete all jumps.
  
• Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
  
• Never stand between a fire hydrant and a dog.
  
• A man is only a man, but a good bicycle is a ride.
  
• Love comes in spurts. <LI>The world does not revolve on an axis.
  
• Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation; the other eight are unimportant.
• Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
  
• Don't do it if you can't keep it up.
  
• There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.
  
• Never go to bed mad, stay up and fight.
  
• Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
  
• "This won't hurt, I promise."
  
• Nothing improves with age.
  
• An ex-wife/husband will always be "till death do us part".
  
• When a man wants his wife to hear, she doesn't listen.
  
• then that same man doesn't want his wife to hear, she's all ears.
  
• It's always easier to get a partner if you already have one.
  
• Love and high-school must NEVER go together.
  
• If a man speaks deep in the forest and there is no woman there to hear him; is he still wrong?
  
• Show me a husband who won't, I'll show you a neighbor who will
  
• It doesn't matter HOW good it was, if you end up worrying or regretting it, it was bad sex
  
• You get the best sex from the worst one for you
  
• Never trust a woman who acts like you are so sexy she can't help herself but drag you to bed
  
• No one is as fascinating as they think
  
• If you believe a relationship can't work, but feel the need to try, it won't: Corollary: You will later find out that your lack of belief caused it to fail.
  
• The duration of a relationship to a person is inversely proportionate to he importance of person to you.
  
• The Key to a woman's heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.
  
• The two thing no man can ever understand; Women and what makes all men complete damm fools over women.
  
• Love makes believers of us all...translation: Love obscures common sense.
  
• Being taken attracts women. Being single makes them avoid you like the plague.

[Misafir]

• Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
  
• Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
  
• If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
  
• If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
  
• Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
  
• The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
• Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
  
• Every non- trivial program has at least one bug: Corollary 1 - A sufficient condition for program triviality is that it have no bugs. Corollary 2 - At least one bug will be observed after the author leaves the organization.
  
• Bugs will appear in one part of a working program when another 'unrelated' part is modified. The subtlest bugs cause the greatest damage and problems. Corollary - A subtle bug will modify storage thereby masquerading as some other problem.
  
• Lulled into Security Law: A 'debugged' program that crashes will wipe out source files on storage devices when there is the least available backup.
• A hardware failure will cause system software to crash, and the customer engineer will blame the programmer.
  
• A system software crash will cause hardware to act strangely and the programmers will blame the customer engineer.
  
• Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
  
• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
• Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers can not write in English.
  
• The documented interfaces between standard software modules will have undocumented quirks.
  
• The probability of a hardware failure disappearing is inversely proportional to the distance between the computer and the customer engineer.
  
• A working program is one that has only unobserved bugs.
  
• No matter how many resources you have, it is never enough.
  
• Any cool program always requires more memory than you have.
  
• When you finally buy enough memory, you will not have enough disk space.
  
• Disks are always full. It is futile to try to get more disk space. Data expands to fill any void.
  
• If a program actually fits in memory and has enough disk space, it is guaranteed to crash.
  
• If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment before it crashes.
  
• No matter how good of a deal you get on computer components, the price will always drop immediately after the purchase.
  
• All components become obsolete.
  
• The speed with which components become obsolete is directly proportional to the price of the component.
  
• Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.
  
• The maintenance engineer will never have seen a model quite like yours before.
  
• It is axiomatic that any spares required will have just been discontinued and will be no longer in stock.
  
• Any VDU, from the cheapest to the most expensive, will protect a twenty cent fuse by blowing first.
  
• Any manufacturer making his warranties dependent upon the device being earthed will only supply power cabling with two wires.
  
• If a circuit requires n components, then there will be only n - 1 components in locally-held stocks.
  
• A failure in a device will never appear until it has passed final inspection.
  
• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
  
• A program generator creates programs that are more buggy than the program generator.
  
• A part dropped from the workbench will roll to a degree of un-reachability proportional to its importance.
  
• In a transistor circuit protected by a fuse, the transistor will always blow to protect the fuse.
  
• No matter how hard you work, the boss will only appear when you access the internet.
  
• The hard drive on your computer will only crash when it contains vital information that has not been backed up.
• Computers don't make errors-What they do they do on purpose.

[Misafir]

• A child's eagerness to assist in any project varies in inverse proportion to his ability to actually do the work involved.
  
• Leftovers always expand to fill all available containers plus one.
  
• A newly washed window gathers dirt at twice the speed of an unwashed one.
  
• The availability of a ballpoint pen is inversely proportional to how badly it is needed.
  
• The same clutter that will fill a one-car garage will fill a two-car garage.
  
• Three children plus two cookies equals a fight.
  
• The potential for disaster is in direct proportion to the number of TV remote-controls divided by the number of viewers.
  
• The number of doors left open varies inversely with the outside temperature.
  
• The capacity of any water-heater is equal to one and a half sibling showers.
  
• What goes up must come down, except bubble gum and slightly used cereal.