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. 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. John P. Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp's Ironical Paradox, which says, "The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.
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!
Submission is set in a France seven years from now that is dominated by a Muslim president intent on imposing Islamic law. To those who agreed with him, Bush pledged that the law against same-sex marriage would remain intact. In Israel, however, a new law took effect January 1st that banned the use of underweight models. We should have to admit that the new law does little or nothing to relieve such a situation.
He that seeketh the law, shall be filled with it: and he that dealeth deceitfully, shall meet with a stumblingblock therein. To Harrison and his wife there was no distinction between the executive and judicial branches of the law. Now this setting up of an orderly law-abiding self seems to me to imply that there are impulses which make for order. These schools became affiliated Universities, but never equalled the Law University in importance. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.
Hinds' Law Of Computer Programming 1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete. 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 available memory. The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. Corollary: If such a program has not crashed yet, it is waiting for a critical moment before it crashes.
No matter how good a deal you get on computer components, the price will always drop immediately after the purchase. Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Wood's Axiom: As soon as a still-to-be-finished computer task becomes a life-or-death situation, the power fails. Fourth Law of Applied Terror: The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign pages on planaria. Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course. Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
Corollary: If you are given a take-home test, you will forget where you live. Rahilly's Law of Academic Administration: Remember that not all the faculty have all their faculties. Terman's Law: There is no direct relationship between the quality of an educational program and its cost. Utvich's Observation: Education is the process of moving from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.
Carlson's Consolation: Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can always serve as a bad example. Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing, you'd probably be bored. Corollary: Just because you're bored doesn't mean you know what you're doing. The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. Reyer's Reflection: A professional is one who does a good job even when he doesn't feel like it. Gummidge's Law: The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public. Ryan's Law: Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.
Van Oech's Law: An expert really doesn't know anymore than you do. He is merely better organized and has slides. Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. Weinberg's Corollary: An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Frisch's Law: It take one woman nine months to have a baby, no matter how many men you put on the job. Firestone's Negative Reformulation of Frisch's Law: You cannot have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Loeb's Laws of Medicine: If what you're doing is working, keep doing it. If what you're doing is not working, stop doing it. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything.
Above all, never let a surgeon get your patient. Shalit's Drugstore Observation: These pills can't be habit-forming; I've been taking them for years.
Second Law: They are both wrong. Lerman's Law of Technology: Any technical problem can be overcome given enough time and money. When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks take two weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear overnight. A compromise is the art of dividing the cake in such a way that each one thinks he is getting the biggest piece. Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being.
Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something that either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
Bula's Truisms: Beauty is only skin deep, but it's a superficial world. Beauty's in the eye of the beholder, yet pin-ups find plenty of room. Burr's Law: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, and that's sufficient. Cutler Webster's Law: There are two sides to every argument, unless a person is personally involved, in which case there is only one. DeVyver's Law: Given a sufficient number of people and an adequate amount of time, you can create insurmountable opposition to the most inconsequential idea.
Ducharm's Axiom: If you view a problem closely enough, you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. Ferris' Frothing: Whatever their faults, the Communists never created canned laughter. First Law of Debate: Never argue with a fool — people might forget who's who. Glyme's Formula For Success: The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. Grave's Law: As soon as you make something idiot-proof, along comes another idiot. Green's Law Of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
Half the population is below median intelligence. Well over half the population is above average. This is due to the fact that there is a limit to human intelligence, but no limit to human stupidity.
Harrison's Postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. Hodge's Homily: There comes a time in a man's life when he must rise above principle. Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.
Jone's Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress — in direct proportion to the importance of the original contribution.
Jones's Law: The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on. Just remember that it takes forty-two muscles to frown and only four muscles to flip 'em the bird. Lacopi's Law: After food and sex, man's greatest drive is to tell the other fellow how to do his job. Law of Personal Expertise: Just when you get really good at something, they don't need you to do it any more. Levy's Laws: To have a sense of humor is to be a tragic figure.
Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied by the virtuous. No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. Eternal boredom is the price of vigilance. Lyndon's Definition: An optimist is a father who lets his teen-age son take the car on a date.
A pessimist is a father who will not. A cynic is a father who did. Mark Twain's Rule: Only kings, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we. Murphy's Societal Axiom: There is nothing more dangerous than good intentions combined with stupidity. Murphy's Statement on the Power of Negative Thinking: It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised.
Never judge a man till you have walked a mile in his shoes, 'cuz by then, he's a mile away, you've got his shoes, and you can say whatever the hell you want to. Newberry's Observation: The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle. Nolan's Observation: The difference between smart people and dumb people isn't that smart people don't make mistakes.
They just don't keep making the same mistake over and over again. Paulsen's Rule: Enter a purported contest and be on the sponsor's sucker list for life.
Peter's Perfect-People Palliative: Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some perhaps not-so-good qualities. In considering our fellow people, we should remember their good qualities and realize that their faults only prove that they are, after all, human. We should refrain from making harsh judgments of people just because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good sons-a-bitches. Primary Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself — historians merely repeat each other.
Quade's Law: In human relations the easiest thing to achieve is a misunderstanding. Rudin's Law: In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course. Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. Siwiak's Rule: The only way to make something foolproof is to keep it away from fools. Spark's Law of Irrepressible Use: If a person has something, they feel compelled to use it even though its use is unnecessary.
Examples: The child who gets a hammer uses it. The person who gets authority will overexercise it. Starr's Law: It's only the people who you don't know who know what they're doing. White's Conclusion: The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. Tell a man there are billion stars in the Galaxy and he'll believe you.
Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure. The Apartment Dweller's Law: Your upstairs neighbors dance, your downstairs neighbors hit the roof, and your next-door neighbors play handball. The Apartment Dweller's Corollary: Neighbors never sleep. The Law of Reality: Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
The Sagan Fallacy: To say a human being is nothing but molecules is like saying a Shakespearean play is nothing but words. The Shrink's Assessment: There's no point in worrying about apathy when you can't care less.
Zymurgy's Law on the Availability of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense. Diogenes' First Dictrum: The more heavily a man is supposed to be taxed, the more power he has to escape being taxed. Hodges' Observation: The problem with government is that it scratches where there ain't no itch. Nowlan's Deduction: Following the path of least resistance is what makes men and rivers crooked.
Polis' Attorney Law: Any law enacted with more than fifty words contains at least one loophole. Sausage Principle: People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
The Abilene Paradox: People in groups tend to agree on courses of action which, as individuals, they know are stupid. The Politician's Rule: In politics you can often be wrong, but never in doubt. Kling's Contrast: Statesmen tell you what is true even though it may be unpopular. Politicians tell you what is popular even though it may be untrue. Barr's Inertial Principle: Asking scientists to revise their theory is like asking cops to revise the law.
Bassagordian's Basic Principle and Ultimate Axiom: By definition, when you are investigating the unknown, you do not know what you will find or even when you have found it. Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library.
Eddington's Theory: The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon is inversely proportional to the available knowledge. Einstein's Observation: Inasmuch as the mathematical theorems are related to reality, they are not sure; inasmuch as they are sure, they are not related to reality. Felson's Law: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. Finagle's Laws: 1. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. Wingo's Axiom: All Finagle's Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking. Finagle's Rules: 1. To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start. Always keep a record of data.
It indicates you've been working. Always draw your curves, then plot the reading. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing. Program results should always be reproducible.
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