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Everyone is familiar with Murphy's most famous law. Here are a few of my favorites from Murphy and others.
Murphy's Laws
1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
4. 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. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
5. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
6. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
7. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
9. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
10. Mother nature is a b****.
11. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
12. Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
13. Every solution breeds new problems.
Murphy's Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Murphy's Military Laws
No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
There is nothing more satisfying that having someone take a shot at you, and miss.
Murphy's Technology Laws
You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some d*** fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works
Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism will do as it d*** well pleases.
In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totaled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
Abrams's Advice:
When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Albrecht's Law:
Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being.
Allen's Distinction
The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep.
Alligator Allegory:
The objective of all dedicated product support employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your a** in alligators, it is difficult to remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
Baer's Quartet:
What's good politics is bad economics; what's bad politics is good economics; what's good economics is bad politics; what's bad economics is good politics.
I LOVE THIS ONE!!!!
Barth's Distinction (also credited to Benchley)
There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.
Beardsley's Warning to Lawyers:
Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity.
Peter's Placebo:
An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.
Putney's Law:
If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy.
Pike Law of Punditry:
The successful pundit is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.
The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices:
The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those functions.
Truman's Law:
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics:
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can. (Old worms never die, they just worm their way into larger cans.)