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The Origin of Murphy's Law 240

Posted by Hemos from the where-it-all-stems-from dept.
LauraW writes "HotAIR, the web site of the Annals of Improbable Research , is publishing a fascinating series on the Origin of Murphy's Law. It turns out there really was a Murphy, and the story of his law involves rocket sleds, Chuck Yeager, and Edwards Air Force Base. The article covers all these topics and more, and includes interviews with Yeager, the son of Murphy (really), and several surviving members of the project that inspired the law."
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The Origin of Murphy's Law More

The Origin of Murphy's Law

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  • As my uncle used to say... (Score:4, Funny)

    by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:17AM (#7024309) Journal
    Murphy was an optimist.

  • Murphy's Law... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:17AM (#7024312)
    is also known as Sod's law in the UK
  • Perhaps it was more like the ones that didn't survive inspired the law in those that did! What a crazy story!

  • More elegant? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:18AM (#7024326)
    To others however the Law is a pessimistic comment that underscores, albeit in more elegant terms, that shit happens.
    Does anyone else agree with me that "shit happens" is a much better way of saying it?

    • Re:More elegant? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:59AM (#7024693) Journal
      Well, no.
      Murphy was an Engineer. His original formulation "'if there is any way to do it wrong, he will", has some value in ergonomic design. Controls should be designed so as to eliminate chance accidents. For instance, in computers, most connectors are shaped, or keyed, so as to reduce the chances of someone plugging in wires the wrong way.

      Some accidents are avoidable. Some are not. The adage "Shit Happens", while perhaps emotionally comforting, may lead some to confuse an entirely avoidable situation with the truly unpredictable.

      • Re:More elegant? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by deuce868 ( 673251 )
        You've obviously never seen someone shove a monitor plug in upside down. Shapes and keys be damned ... it will happen. It just takes a large enough idiot.

        • Re:More elegant? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 )
          I note that almost none of the recent connector designs share the DB configuration used by VGA plugs. DVI does, but at least it's internally keyed.

          Personally,I look forward to connectors that can be plugged in despite low lighting and cramped conditions, purely by feel, without risking pins on a cable, that by some fiat (FCC?), is non-replaceable.

      • Like the IDE cables? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SharpFang ( 651121 )
        Nowadays it's been pretty much cleared up. But in times between 286 and early P2, there were two basic methods as how to "protect" the ide tapes from plugging them in the wrong way. One was a bit of plastic sticking out from the side, the other was one of the holes in the plug filled. One was solved by corresponding gap in the plastic around the pins, the other by a missing pin. The problem though, was that apparently the producers couldn't come to agreement which one is right. So sometimes there was no gap

  • But the site is Slashdotted, right? (Score:4, Funny)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:18AM (#7024328)

    Thereby proving the law!

  • Shameless TV Quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by GaveUp ( 190969 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:19AM (#7024334)
    "Bad people are punished by societies laws and good people are punished by Murphy's Law." --George, Dead Like Me

  • One of my favorites.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SailFly ( 560133 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:20AM (#7024341) Homepage

    If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in.

  • It's true! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jbellis ( 142590 ) * <jonathan@carDEBI ... com minus distro> on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:20AM (#7024344) Homepage
    I was skeptical, so I google'd [google.com] for it and found that pretty much everyone agrees with these guys that it was Ed Murphy of the Air Force bemoaning a technician's incompetence: "If there is any way to do it wrong, he will."

    So there you have it. Truth according to the Internet. :)

  • another murphy's law (Score:5, Funny)

    by GarbanzoBean ( 695162 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:21AM (#7024353)
    If a server can be slashdotted, it definetly will be.

  • Old News (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:25AM (#7024396)
    Anyone who has read through the original "Murphy's Law" books, published in the late 70s / early 80s, should remember that this was well documented in the prefaces. This is hardly new information. Come to think of it, it's not really "science" either, as suggested by the category.

    • Re:Old News (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TonyZahn ( 534930 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:02AM (#7024721) Homepage
      Busted.

      If you'd actually read the article, you'd see that the writers covers the story in the preface of the book and researches it in much greater detail. Apparently everyone involved at the time has their own version of the story, and some of them have rather strong feelings about it. It's really an interesting read. it's too bad the link is posted before all 4 parts of the article are finished.

  • Slashdot's Law. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:26AM (#7024402) Homepage Journal

    "Anytime a camera is present, someone will stretch open their bottom."
  • Initially, it was "if the damn idiot can get it wrong, he will", which was an indictment of poor design assuming that the user was smart, when we all know that a smart design assumes the user is stoned and half-asleep on a muggy Monday morning.

    The victims of Murphy's Law then turned around and said "if the system can go wrong, it will", which was around the same period we invented the notion of "computer error".

    Finally, Murphy's Law made the leap to non-technological domains, "if something can break, it will, in the worst possible way".

    So Murphy's Law today delegates responsibility for our fuck-ups to the hostile hand of fate, whereas Murphy's original comment was all about our own responsibility for making systems that actually work.
    • I'm not so sure that the standard version of Murphy's Law really delegates our fuck-ups to the hostile hand of fate. I've always thought of it as a reminder of just how much attention it takes to succeed in our responsibility to make systems work properly.

      A program, for example, should be able to handle every possible strange situation or user input that can be thrown at it, even the ones the programmer would never have expected, and at least be able to generate an error and stop executing rather than exh

  • IIRC (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:27AM (#7024406) Homepage Journal
    Murphy's law originally stated that if something can go wrong, at some point it will, therefore make it such that the somthing can't go wrong. In other words, idiot-proofing is required when building something.

    For example, PS2 connections for keyboards and mice are keyed to prevent being plugged in the wrong way.

    GUI developers (especially KDE and GNOME developers!!!) should take notes on things like this.

    • Re:IIRC (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dAzED1 ( 33635 )
      they might be keyed so that they can go in only the right way, but when the keyboard and mouse are both ps/2 connections...
      For the first little while ps/2 connections became popular in the compat-world, I was a lowly it tech and saw many a motherboard where someone simply plugged the mouse into the keyboard socket and vice-versa. Blew out most keyboard bioses back in those days. Pretty damn stupid. Sure, key it...but make one an AT connection (keyboard) and one a ps/2. Yeesh. Not really idiot-proof ot

      • Re:IIRC (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mccalli ( 323026 )
        Sure, key it...but make one an AT connection (keyboard) and one a ps/2. Yeesh. Not really idiot-proof otherwise.

        Better still, design it so that either device would work in either port. Similar to the USB or firewire ports - it doesn't matter which USB port you plug the keyboard into and which the mouse, either will work.

        Cheers,
        Ian

        • Better still, design it so that either device would work in either port.

          If my memory serves me right, this is the way at least some of the original PS/2s worked. This was the case at least on the lowly Model 25.
    • For example, PS2 connections for keyboards and mice are keyed to prevent being plugged in the wrong way.

      Umm, no they aren't. At least not on any of my keyboards, mice, or motherboards.

      They *should* be, cause it'd save an awfully large amount of annoyance...
      • uh, yes they are [techadvice.com]. (oh how i love google image search)
        • Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, you can't put em in upside down. I thought you meant they're keyed differently to one another so you can't put the keyboard in the mouse socket or vice versa, which would be a smart addition...

  • Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:27AM (#7024410)
    Mirror here [achurch.org].
  • Just a thought: we can all post our corallaries all over the place, or we can put them together. I say, 3/4 of you post your corallaries here, and the other 1/4, make some more top-level posts reasonably identical to mine!

  • Just karma whoring (Score:4, Informative)

    by NorthDude ( 560769 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:38AM (#7024497)
    With a 2 sec google search:
    Murphy's Law [murphys-laws.com]

    If I remember correctly, there is even a picture of the guy in question, and some pretty funny story to in the "Origin of Murphy's Law" section...

  • Reverse Murphy's Law (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KrunZ ( 247479 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:39AM (#7024510)
    Reverse Murphy's Law:

    "Things never go as bad as they could have."

    A teacher one introduced me to it for fun, but I think it holds.
    • That's the reverse Finagle's law. Finagle's law states that whatever can go wrong will.

      I believe that Murphy's law happened to Murphy's law, since almost EVERYONE interprets it wrong. Check your local jargon file.

    • "There's no situation so bad that it can't get worse. So be glad that it isn't. At least, not yet."
    • I have not one but two sayings to combat your feckless optimism. The first is "It's always darkest before it's pitch black", and the other one (a railroad saying) is "There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is an oncoming train."

  • Bah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:52AM (#7024633) Homepage Journal
    I was expecting a scientific explanation for Murphy's Law. You know, like conservation laws for energy and momentum are explained from the symmetry of spacetime. If we maintain that Murphy's is a law of physics, there must be a *&^[#%&]$^#%{[[::@;' NO CARRIER

  • Article: (Part 4 is not up on the page yet) (Score:5, Informative)

    by big_groo ( 237634 ) <groovis AT gmail DOT com> on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:54AM (#7024643) Homepage
    I have become the world's leading expert on Murphy's Law. No really, I'm serious. You doubtless have heard the Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. To some it is a profound statement of philosophy, a reminder that life can be defined just as much by its inherent challenges as anything else. To others however the Law is a pessimistic comment that underscores, albeit in more elegant terms, that shit happens.

    Whatever you might think about Murphy's Law, one thing is certain: it is as ubiquitous an expression as there is in American English. Over the years it has been cited in thousands of articles, websites and news reports, been the subject of several books, appeared as the title of at least one bad Charles Bronson movie and a TV show, and inspired about a dozen zillion corollary Laws. Just about every time something goes wrong somewhere, the Law gets its two cents in. Fortunately my expertise owes very little to actual adversity -- I'm not writing this from a hospital bed -- and almost everything to research. Historical research. Which is to say I have become the expert on the origins of Murphy's Law. This happened by accident...and if I'd known what the consequences would be of sticking my nose into it -- how I'd draw the wrath of Chuck Yeager, get caught in the middle of a nasty 20-year feud, and nearly wind up in a hospital bed -- I probably wouldn't have bothered.

    The Road to Murphy's Law

    This all began a few months ago, after I showed an article I'd written for an aviation history magazine to my neighbor. The article concerned some goings on at Edwards, the famed Air Force flight test facility, in the 1950's. "You know," my neighbor said, "You'd probably be real interested in talking to my father, David Hill Sr. He worked at Edwards, on a bunch of rocket sled tests in the 1940's. In fact," he continued proudly, "he knew Murphy."

    "Murphy?" I inquired, searching my memory for a test pilot of the same name. Yeager, Crossfield, Armstrong... It didn't ring a bell.

    "You know, Murphy," he went on. "The guy who invented Murphy's Law."

    I didn't say it, but I was absolutely skeptical. Who wouldn't be? One might as well claim to be friends with Kilroy, know the identity of Deepthroat, or the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart. The notion seemed outright laughable. Your father knew Murphy? Sure he did! If Murphy wasn't some imaginary Irish folk hero, then he was probably a gentle sage who drank a lot of Guinness and lived back in the 1700's. Needless to say I let the subject slide.

    But a day or two later, I almost tripped over a slender book called Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong that had been left on my doorstep. The book cited Murphy's Law and then listed literally hundreds of amusing corollaries. The extremely brief forward to the volume included a letter written by an engineer named George Nichols. And this is where things got interesting. Nichols said he'd worked on a series of rocket sled tests at Edwards in the 1940's with a Colonel John Paul Stapp and that Murphy's Law emerged from these tests.

    "The Law's namesake," Nichols wrote, "was Capt. Ed Murphy Jr., a development engineer... Frustrated with a strap transducer which was malfunctioning due to an error in wiring the strain gauge bridges caused him to remark -- 'if there is any way to do it wrong, he will' -- referring to the technician who had wired the bridges. I assigned Murphy's Law to the statement and the associated variations..."

    That appeared straightforward enough, and piqued my interest. I subsequently did some research and I discovered to my surprise that the story of the origin of Murphy's Law was not something generally agreed upon. Accounts in fact varied wildly. Some sources gave the credit solely to Ed Murphy Jr., a man they praised for his wisdom, insight, and panache, but said almost nothing about. In other places, Nichols' letter appeared -- often word for word -- explaining how he had come up with "the statement." And at least a few writers suggested that Co

  • This is news? Besides he's quoting the wrong Law! (Score:4, Informative)

    by xA40D ( 180522 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @10:55AM (#7024654) Homepage
    According to FOLDOC [ic.ac.uk], Murphy's Law is:

    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.

    The FOLDOC entry (from the Hacker's Lexicon I believe) also mentions the rocket sled thing....

  • See the jargon file (Score:3, Informative)

    by fcanedo ( 553180 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:02AM (#7024717)
    Murphy's law [catb.org]

  • Jargon (Score:2, Funny)

    by bahamat ( 187909 )
    I guess this could be considered "news for newbies" because this has been in the jargon file for quite some time [astrian.net].

    That's ok, you go read it guys. I'll just sit back sipping my ISO standard cup of tea [astrian.net] and enjoying some ANSI standard pizza [astrian.net].

    Be sure to submit a story when you find out why it's called El Camino Bignum.

  • Timing is of the essence (Score:3, Funny)

    by geschild ( 43455 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:08AM (#7024779) Homepage

    I've always thought that "Murphy's law" was not precise enough. There's this addition that is needed to make it really work.

    Murphy's law revised:

    "If anything can go wrong, it will. At the worst possible moment."

    Try that one on for size. Proof? Two examples.

    When a wing on an aircraft fails, not too many people will notice, unless the aircraft is flying.

    You don't mind getting butter on your suit too badly, except when it's your new suit, that you just bought yesterday for this really important job-interview you're due for in about an hour.

    I could go on for hours. :D

  • Murphy's law and Meyer Brigg's (Score:3, Interesting)

    by f97tosc ( 578893 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:15AM (#7024832)
    In the famous Meyer Brigg's [spelling?] personality test Murphy's law is commonly associated with the "J" type personality.

    J is for judgemental; it is the 50% of people who like to be well organized and plan things in advance.

    Murphy's law basically says that you should always do more preparations and planning to be better prepared; it thus rings very well with this group.

    The other half of the population are much more interested in living in the present, for them the idea of always doing more preparations and planning for the future is not so appealing at all.

    Tor

  • Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ballpoint ( 192660 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:18AM (#7024869)
    A story (don't know the origin) involves a thirsty emperor arriving at a bar and ordering a pint of mead (old times, you know). When the waitress arrives she holds the pint by the ear so that the emperor cannot grab it easily.

    The mead must have tasted well enough for him to return to the bar with a built-to-order pint with two opposite handles. Sure enough the waitress returns the full pint to the emperor holding the pint with both hands by both handles.

    Third time's a charm, the emperor must have thought as het returned to the bar, this time with a pint having three handles. Unimpressed the waitress returns the full pint holding it by two handles with the third handle pointing towards her chest.

    Moral: idiot-proof design is difficult, and requires many iterations.

    • first, the reason nothing can be made truly idiot-proof is that no rational human being can guess all of the variations that an idiot is going to somehow come up with. And the idiot in question isn't going to be coherent enough to tell you, either. (No matter how well it's designed, there are always going to be those individuals who could be left in a padded room with two steel ball bearings- and in ten minutes, will have lost one and broken the other... and they're going to want to use your design, too)

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by draxredd ( 661953 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:24AM (#7024925)
    So murphy's law *IS* rocket science.
  • I've actually heard another version of the Original Myrphy's law... "If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way". The reference is here [abc.net.au].

    Does anyone know the validity of this version?

  • Strangedog's Law (Score:4, Informative)

    by stinkydog ( 191778 ) <sd@stCOWrangedog.net minus herbivore> on Monday September 22, 2003 @11:51AM (#7025173) Homepage
    If you post it on your web site, it's available even if you don't directly link to it.

    Part 4 [improb.com] early for your viewing pleasure.

    SD
    • Fantastic write-up that geeks need to read. Insight on history, human nature, science, and safety.

      For every poster who wrote "I've heard this before!" read the article and you will see that the author compares the different versions of the origin.

      p.s. congrats on slashdotting improb.com. They run the Ignoble prizes, and publish "The Annals of Improbable Research" A great blend of science and humo[u]r.

      mks
  • Murphy's Law is one of the pillars of the entire Open Source idea. Send your code to the world. Someone, somewhere will screw something up, often with amusing or frightful consequences. Something will go wrong.

    The problem with traditional methods of testing is that these worst cases -- the outlier condition, the far-fetched and novel usage -- are not even considered let alone tested. You can make default conditions for wildcard input, but cannot test for what you cannot conceive. So Murphy's Law is actuall
  • Murphy's law was not created Murphy, but by another man with the same name.
  • Murphy's Law wasn't written by Murphy, but by another man with the same name.
  • Two memorable Corollary laws that I remember from a Murphy's Law calendar I once had:

    -- Where there's a right, there's a wrong.

    -- A fool and your money are soon partners.
  • Presumably says that not only will things go wrong if they can, but the rate of their going wrong is doubling every 18 months. Which explains a lot...
  • If there are 5 checkout lanes open in a grocery store, only one of them will be the fastest. So, 4 times out of 5, the lane you pick will be slower than another lane.

    Murphy's Law is all about perception.
  • If I recall, it was one of "Murphy's" Prime Directives
    1. Serve the public trust
    2. Protect the innocent
    3. Uphold the law
  • "Guys become, if you'll pardon my expression, sexual intellectuals. You know what the phrase is for that?"

    I have to admit no, I'm not familiar with the term. Sexual what?

    "Sexual intellectuals. They're fucking know-it-alls, that's what."

    i shot my Dr. Pepper out my nose reading that.

    every - and i do mean EVERY single person i've met that's ever seen or dealt with Chuck Yeager (given General for the hell of it) has used the word "asshole" to describe him.

    (i'm former AF officer and have dealt with enough g

  • My question is, what self-respecting Slashdot reading nerd here wouldn't already know the story about Murphy's Law?

    Just wondering --since I think it's stuff that matters

  • Murphy's Law = Crutch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by liam193 ( 571414 ) on Monday September 22, 2003 @01:22PM (#7025976)

    About 15 years ago a computer systems professional wrote an article which was published in Network World magazine that discussed Murphy's Law. The basic premise was that Murphy's Law was a crutch used by incompetants to justify they're lack of planning. The ideas expressed by Murphy should be a warning to all to prepare for the worst you can imagine so your not caught by the small shortcomings; however, they are all too often used to justify the failure of someone to plan. A disaster does not have to be a catastrophe if proper planning is done.

    I'm providing the text of the article below. It is used by permission of the author.

    Brandt's Laws

    It was 1959. I was sixteen years old and had just accepted a job with a small electronics firm. I was employed there but a few days when I learned of Murphy's Law. I had previously learned of Charles' and Boyle's laws and the law of gravity. I instinctively knew if they called it a law, Murphy was right. After all, the other laws I had learned were valid.

    I spent four years in electronics and moved to Data Processing after college. From what people said, Murphy seemed to be alive and well in the computer industry too. Something bothered me from time to time. People who had not been prudent used Murphy to avoid facing up to their failures. After all, if something was going to happen no matter what you did, how could you be held responsible for it? Carelessness crept in when Murphy could be blamed.

    In the early eighties, I was introduced to men like Ken Copeland, Phil Crosby, Edward Demming and Ken Hagin. They all teach that we are responsible for our actions and we control our futures.

    It took time but their message finally started to sink in. If I was prudent, I could control many of the things I had considered beyond my control. If I didn't accept unfavorable results as inevitable, they were not. Slowly, I formulated what is nearly the antithesis of Murphy's law. Although I didn't invent these laws, since I recorded them I don't blanch at calling them Brandt's Laws. Like anyone who is ahead of his peers, I've even been criticized for them. The following are several of the basic ones.

    1. Murphy's law is a crutch used by incompetents to excuse their failures.
      Too often, things happen and we simply write them off as inevitable. All too frequently, these are the result of a lack of prudence, fueled by carelessness caused by Murphy's laws.
    2. Things go wrong only if you fail to take action to prevent them.
      I have never seen a well-planned fiasco.
    3. If you plan to survive the worst case and plan to avoid its happening, it'll not happen and you will survive.
      By carefully studying the situation and engaging in good contingency planning, your survival is assured.
    4. There is no substitute for knowing what one is doing.
      Lack of academic preparation and carelessness in on-going study frequently cause failures. I've seen many so-called professionals who don't study enough to keep up with even a minimum of available knowledge. Many work harder at their hobbies than their professions. These are not professionals but overpaid day laborers.
    5. A quick fix is neither quick nor a fix.
      So frequently a band-aid is used to treat a severed artery, assuming or hoping it will heal if ignored. This is not to say that there frequently isn't a "simple" fix, but it should correct the problem and not create future problems. A quick fix targets symptoms, not the cause.
    6. Few problems have only one cause.
      If, on the surface a problem has one obvious cause, there are several others and the most significant is not the obvious. The most obvious cause is frequently the one attacked, often at the expense of ignoring the real cause.
    7. The path we recognize as the right one but think we cannot afford is usually the one we use after we h
    • The laws themselves are fine as far as they go, and I've heard many of them before, but the original author's fatal flaw lies in the fact that he, and many others, mistake Murphy's Law for a physical law, like gravity. Murphy's Law, as we know it today (anything that can go wrong, will) is fundamentally a law of humanity, and our propensity for planning and design in general.

      Nature doesn't "go wrong". An asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out life may seem like a fine example of Murphy's Law, but only
  • I found the best part to be this bit while he was talking to Chuck Yeager:

    I have to admit no, I'm not familiar with the term. Sexual what? "Sexual intellectuals. They're fucking know-it-alls, that's what."

    That destroys the credibility of the piece for me. I swear I've seen stuff on TV where Chuck himself admits to having cracked ribs. But as he would point out, that's just the way I remember it.

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