2006-11-04 13:41:29 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
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.
2006-11-04 13:49:46 · answer #1 · answered by mic2345 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The Basic Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
Corollaries and Derivatives:
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and at the worst possible moment.
Everything takes longer than you think.
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
Any wire cut to length will be too short.
After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench.
Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of the most harm.
No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to keep.
If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no longer available.
When the plane you are on is late, your connecting flight is on time.
Toothaches tend to start on Friday night.
The other check-out line always moves faster -- and immediately slows down after you change lines.
Any given computer program will expand to fill all available memory.
Computers are unreliable but humans are even more unreliable.
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
Enough research will tend to support any theory.
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. --- Work is accomplished by those who have not as yet reached their level of incompetence. (also known as the Peter Principle)
2006-11-04 13:50:07 · answer #2 · answered by Its not me Its u 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Murphy's Law is an incomplete set of "laws" that appear to actually apply to real life. Indeed some of them have actually been used and did prove out. One that has yet to be disproved is "What can be, must be". It has been proved true in several cases.
2006-11-04 13:56:41 · answer #3 · answered by Sophist 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A full list
http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html
2006-11-04 13:50:12 · answer #4 · answered by kate 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is also a TV show starring Rex Murphy in Canada
2006-11-04 13:48:53 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If it can go wrong it will go wrong at the most perfectly wrong time. murphy;s law...
2006-11-04 13:43:42 · answer #6 · answered by Marshall Lee 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
1) The notion that in a given situation, anything that can go bad or wrong, will go bad and wrong.
2) TV show with Candice Bergen
2006-11-04 13:44:37 · answer #7 · answered by s_bodhi 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
what ever can go wrong will at the most inopertune moment
2006-11-04 13:43:49 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If anything can go wrong, it will.
2006-11-04 13:52:41 · answer #9 · answered by larryclay2006 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
2006-11-04 13:43:39 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋