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Murphy's Law.
This idiom says that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. And it may just be right. This isn't because of some mysterious power the law possesses. In reality, it's us who give Murphy's Law relevance. When life goes well, little is made of it. After all, we expect that things should work out in our favor. But when things go badly, we look for reasons.
Think about walking. How many times have you reached a destination and thought, "Wow, I walk really well"? But when you trip over a curb and skin your knee, it's a pretty good bet you'll wonder why this had to happen to you.
Murphy's Law taps into our tendency to dwell on the negative and overlook the positive. It seems to poke fun at us for being such hotheads, and it uses the rules of probability -- the mathematical likeliness that something will occur -- to support itself.
The law captures our imagination. Murphy's Law and its offshoots have been collected in books and Web sites. Several bands are named after Murphy's Law, and it's also a popular name for Irish pubs and taverns around the world. It was also used as the title of an action movie.
But Murphy's Law is a relatively new concept, dating back to the middle of the last century. Magician Adam Hull Shirk wrote in the 1928 essay, "On Getting Out of Things," that in a magic act, nine out of 10 things that can go wrong usually will. Even before this, it was called Sod's Law, which states that any bad thing that can happen to some poor sod will. In fact, Murphy's Law is still referred to as Sod's Law in England.
Believe it or not, there really was a Murphy, and he lived in the United States until his death in 1990. Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr. was an engineer in the Air Force. Although he took part in other engineering design tests throughout both his military and civilian careers, it was one test that he attended -- almost as a fluke -- that gave rise to Murphy's Law.
In 1949, at Edwards Air Force Base in California, officers were conducting project MX981 tests to determine once and for all how many Gs -- the force of gravity -- a human being could withstand. They hoped that their findings could be applied to future airplane designs.
The project team used a rocket sled dubbed the "Gee Whiz" to simulate the force of an airplane crash. The sled traveled more than 200 miles per hour down a half-mile track, coming to an abrupt stop in less than a second. The problem was that, in order to find out just how much force a person could take, the team needed an actual person to experience it. Enter Colonel John Paul Stapp. Stapp was a career physician for the Air Force, and he volunteered to ride the rocket sled. Over the course of several months, Stapp took ride after physically grueling ride. He was subjected to broken bones, concussions and broken blood vessels in his eyes, all in the name of science.
Murphy attended one of the tests, bearing a gift: a set of sensors that could be applied to the harness that held Dr. Stapp to the rocket sled. These sensors were capable of measuring the exact amount of G-force applied when the rocket sled came to a sudden stop, making the data more reliable.
There are several stories about what happened that day, and about who exactly contributed what to the creation of Murphy's Law, but what follows is a good approximation of what happened.
The first test after Murphy hooked up his sensors to the harness produced a reading of zero -- all of the sensors had been connected incorrectly. For each sensor, there were two ways of connecting them, and each one was installed the wrong way.
When Murphy discovered the mistake, he grumbled something about the technician, who was allegedly blamed for the foul-up. Murphy said something along the lines of, "If there are two ways to do something, and one of those ways will result in disaster, he'll do it that way".
Shortly thereafter, Murphy headed back to Wright Airfield where he was stationed. But Stapp, a man who was known for his sense of humor and quick wit, recognized the universality of what Murphy had said, and in a press conference he mentioned that the rocket sled team's good safety record had been due to its awareness of Murphy's Law. He told the press that it meant "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong".
Interestingly, this has little bearing on another well known axiom, Cole's Law.
It’s a bunch of thinly sliced cabbage with a mayonnaise based dressing.
This idiom says that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. And it may just be right. This isn't because of some mysterious power the law possesses. In reality, it's us who give Murphy's Law relevance. When life goes well, little is made of it. After all, we expect that things should work out in our favor. But when things go badly, we look for reasons.
Think about walking. How many times have you reached a destination and thought, "Wow, I walk really well"? But when you trip over a curb and skin your knee, it's a pretty good bet you'll wonder why this had to happen to you.
Murphy's Law taps into our tendency to dwell on the negative and overlook the positive. It seems to poke fun at us for being such hotheads, and it uses the rules of probability -- the mathematical likeliness that something will occur -- to support itself.
The law captures our imagination. Murphy's Law and its offshoots have been collected in books and Web sites. Several bands are named after Murphy's Law, and it's also a popular name for Irish pubs and taverns around the world. It was also used as the title of an action movie.
But Murphy's Law is a relatively new concept, dating back to the middle of the last century. Magician Adam Hull Shirk wrote in the 1928 essay, "On Getting Out of Things," that in a magic act, nine out of 10 things that can go wrong usually will. Even before this, it was called Sod's Law, which states that any bad thing that can happen to some poor sod will. In fact, Murphy's Law is still referred to as Sod's Law in England.
Believe it or not, there really was a Murphy, and he lived in the United States until his death in 1990. Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr. was an engineer in the Air Force. Although he took part in other engineering design tests throughout both his military and civilian careers, it was one test that he attended -- almost as a fluke -- that gave rise to Murphy's Law.
In 1949, at Edwards Air Force Base in California, officers were conducting project MX981 tests to determine once and for all how many Gs -- the force of gravity -- a human being could withstand. They hoped that their findings could be applied to future airplane designs.
The project team used a rocket sled dubbed the "Gee Whiz" to simulate the force of an airplane crash. The sled traveled more than 200 miles per hour down a half-mile track, coming to an abrupt stop in less than a second. The problem was that, in order to find out just how much force a person could take, the team needed an actual person to experience it. Enter Colonel John Paul Stapp. Stapp was a career physician for the Air Force, and he volunteered to ride the rocket sled. Over the course of several months, Stapp took ride after physically grueling ride. He was subjected to broken bones, concussions and broken blood vessels in his eyes, all in the name of science.
Murphy attended one of the tests, bearing a gift: a set of sensors that could be applied to the harness that held Dr. Stapp to the rocket sled. These sensors were capable of measuring the exact amount of G-force applied when the rocket sled came to a sudden stop, making the data more reliable.
There are several stories about what happened that day, and about who exactly contributed what to the creation of Murphy's Law, but what follows is a good approximation of what happened.
The first test after Murphy hooked up his sensors to the harness produced a reading of zero -- all of the sensors had been connected incorrectly. For each sensor, there were two ways of connecting them, and each one was installed the wrong way.
When Murphy discovered the mistake, he grumbled something about the technician, who was allegedly blamed for the foul-up. Murphy said something along the lines of, "If there are two ways to do something, and one of those ways will result in disaster, he'll do it that way".
Shortly thereafter, Murphy headed back to Wright Airfield where he was stationed. But Stapp, a man who was known for his sense of humor and quick wit, recognized the universality of what Murphy had said, and in a press conference he mentioned that the rocket sled team's good safety record had been due to its awareness of Murphy's Law. He told the press that it meant "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong".
Interestingly, this has little bearing on another well known axiom, Cole's Law.
It’s a bunch of thinly sliced cabbage with a mayonnaise based dressing.
