Murphy's law:

Anything that can go wrong will.

* Trust everybody ... then cut the cards.
* Two wrongs are only the beginning.
* If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
* To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your
principles.
* Exceptions prove the rule ... and wreck the budget.
* Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
* Quality assurance dosen't.
* The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users
don't really
know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.
* Exceptions always outnumber rules.
* To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research
* No one is listening until you make a mistake.
* He who hesitates is probably right.
* The ideal resume will turn up one day after the position is filled.
* If something is confidential, it will be left in the copier machine.
* One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.
* A clean tie attracts the soup of the day.
* The hardness of the butter is in direct proportion to the softness
of the
bread.
* The bag that breaks is the one with the eggs.
* When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks take
two
weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear
overnight.
* The book you spent $20.95 for today will come out in paperback
tomorrow.
* The more an item costs, the farther you have to send it for repairs.
* You never want the one you can afford.
* Never ask the barber if you need a haircut or a salesman if his is a
good
price.
* If it says "one size fits all," it dosen't fit anyone.
* You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
* The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it.
* Love letters, business contracts and money due to you always arrive
three
weeks late, whereas junk mail arrives the day it was sent.
* When you drop change at a vending machine, the pennies will fall
nearby,
while all other coins will roll out of sight.
* The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
* Experience is somthing you don't get until just after you need it.
* Life can be only understood backwards, but it must be lived
forwards.
* Interchangable parts won't.
* No matter which way you go, it's uphill and against the wind.
* If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical
methods.
* Work is accomplished by those employees who have not reached their
level of
incompetence.

*
*
in

Progress is made on alternative Fridays.

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is

session.
The hidden flaw never remains hidden.
As soon as the stewardess serves the coffee, the airline encounters
turbulence.
* For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
* People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch
either of
them being made.
* A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
* When reviewing your notes for a test, the most important ones will
be
illegible.
* A free agent is anything but.
* The least experienced fisherman always catches the biggest fish.
* Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with.
* The one item you want is never the one on sale.
* The telephone will ring when you are outside the door, fumbling for
your
keys.
* If only one price can be obtained for a quotation, the price will be
unreasonable.
**********************************************************************
Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting
some useful work done.
Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology
instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.
Corollary:
Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do
except study for that instructor's course.
Fourth Law of Revision:
It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for
you.
Fresco's Discovery:
If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
direction.
2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
3. The energy required to change either one of these states
will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
much as to make the task totally impossible.
First Law of Bicycling:
No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.
First Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who
imposed the deadline).
First Law of Socio-Genetics:
*
*

Celibacy is not hereditary.

First Rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
other.
Flugg's Law:
When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the
world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong.
-- H. L. Mencken
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 exam, you will forget where you
live.
Fifth Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
there is nothing important to do.
Finagle's Creed:
Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
Finagle's First Law:
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only
makes it worse.
Finagle's Second Law:
No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c)
believe it happened according to his own pet theory.
Finagle's Third Law:
In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
beyond all need of checking, is the mistake
Corollaries:
1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting
some useful work done.
Ginsberg's Theorem:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.
Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem
meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's
Theorem. To wit:
1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
even.
3. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the
game.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a
mistake when you make it again.
-- F. P. Jones

Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old

ones.
Emersons' Law of Contrariness:
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
just how busy they are.
Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
of your eyes.
Ducharm's Axiom:
If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize
yourself as part of the problem.
Ducharme's Precept:
Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
Ehrman's Commentary:
1. Things will get worse before they get better.
2. Who said things would get better?
Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
DeVries's Dilemma:
If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want
hits the paper.
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
Conway's Law:
In any organization there will always be one person who knows
what is going on.
This person must be fired.
Percussive Sublimation is the promotion of an incompetent employee to a
"higher" position which brings on no new responsibility but unclogs the
rest
of the hierarchy. This is known as kicking someone upstairs.
Hierarchiology
tells us that every thriving organization will be characterized by this
accumulation of deadwood at the executive level, consisting of
percussive
sublimatees and potential candidates for percussive sublimation. One
wellknown appliance manufacturing firm has twenty-three vice-presidents!
The Lateral Arabesque is another pseudo-promotion. Without being raised
in
rank -- sometimes without even a pay raise -- the incompetent employee
is
given A NEW AND LONGER TITLE and is moved to an office in a remote part
of
the building.
...so we see that percussive sublimation and lateral arabesques can
serve
to keep the drones out of the hair of the workers.
-- from "The Peter Principle"
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
Churchill's Commentary on Man:
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the
time he will pick himself up and continue on.
Colvard's Logical Premises:
All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it

won't.
Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary:
This is especially true when dealing with someone you're
attracted to.
Grelb's Commentary
Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.
Chism's Law of Completion:
The amount of time required to complete a government project is
precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.
Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
planning to reduce the time it takes.
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone
Ranger have handled this?"
Bucy's Law:
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Boren's Laws:
(1) When in charge, ponder.
(2) When in trouble, delegate.
(3) When in doubt, mumble.
Boling's postulate:
If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.
A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
blowing first.
A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
the real reason.
About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHway to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.
Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a
larger object.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't.

The label means the

price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"
means the price went way up.
Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
(1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
(2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
(3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
first two laws.
's Laws of Love:
(1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you
remind them of someone else.
(2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will
be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool
of yourself in person.
Avoid reality at all costs.
Bagdikian's Observation:
Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion"
on a ukelele.
Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides
by governors.
Barach's Rule:
An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician.
Barth's Distinction:
There are two types of people: those who divide people into two
types, and those who don't.
Baruch's Observation:
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Beifeld's Principle:
The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and
receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when
he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3)
a better looking and richer male friend.
**********************************************************************
.
The original (neither Diet nor New) is:
"If the slightest probability for an unpleasant event to happen exists,
the event will take place; preferably during a demonstration."
A few other ones:
Buttered Pancake Principle:
"Any buttered pancake that falls down will land on the buttered side.
Results of this principle are not affected in any way by adding jam.
The pancake will land on the non-buttered side whenever attempting to
demonstrate this principle."
Gordon's Warranty Law:
"All warranty clauses expires upon bill payment."
Gordon's Object Lifespan Theorem:
"No matter the amount of care given the purchased object, it will
fuse/explode/
disassemble within three (3) days of warranty expiration."
IBM Project Management Axiom:
"Need for project modifications increases proportionnally to project
completion"
Universal Tech Document Units Law:
"Characteristics, specifications, dimensions and any other data included

in technical documents must be stated in exotic units, such as "tenth

of
troy once per barn" for pressures, or "acre times atmosphere per
kilogram"
for speeds."
Instruction Booklet Governing Principle:
"Instruction booklets are lost by the Goods Delivery Service. If not,
they
are listed in four languages: Japanese, Thai, Swahili and Moghol."
Sjeverrijk Theorem:
"In any computation, the value given for certain is wrong."
Scientific Computations Law:
"a. Decimal points are misplaced.
b. Positive powers of ten are in fact negative, and vice-versa."
This law is responsible for interesting results such as 40.8E-3
angstroms
for the earth's circumference, or 3.2E2 Gigafarads in and RLC circuit.
Fractions Computations Basic Principle:
"In any fraction of mid-level complexity, interchange of factors above
and
under the fraction bar takes place."
Scheverezhin's Equation System Theorem:
"When solving an equation system, the result yielded is x=17x + 1, which
is evidently false. Careful recomputation will yield x=x or 1=1."
Vuilleumier's Laws For Building Electronic Prototypes:
First Law:
"Any pre-cut equipment is too short. This is specially true of optic
fiber
cables with expensive connectors at both ends."
Second Law:
"If n electronic components are required, n-1 are available."
Third Law (also known as "Selective Gravitational Field"):
"Any tool escaping manipulator's hands willnot necessarily follow
Earth's
gravitational field, but will land in the most unreachable location in
the prototype, smashing on its way the most expensive component of the
prototype.
This will know only one exception if the tool is particularly heavy, in
which case it will land on the manipulator's foot."
Fourth Law:
"When proteup first, thankfully leaving the fuses intact."
Fifth Law:
"Prototype npn blackboxes actually hold pnp transistors, and viceversa."
Sixth Law:
"A quartz oscillator oscillates at a frequency off the rated one by a
minimum
of 25% - if it does oscillate at all."
Seventh Law:
"When the prototype has been fully assembled according to lab
instructions,
a minimum of 11 components are left."
Murphy's Corollary (is that English?):
"If every expert consulted states the problem has no solution, its
solution
will be obvious to the first unqualified person entering the room,
whether

he/she speaks the language or not."

Prospective Principle:
"A Graphic curve must be plotted before computing any values actually
supposed
to belong to it."
Fudge's Principle:
"If measured results do not match computed values of your equation, add
a new factor - named after yourself - to the equation."
Diddle's Principle:
"Any set of results can match any set of equations provided you develop
a good imagination and sense of tolerance."
Ostrich's Principle:
"Ignore any bugging problem; it will be solved as soon as people stop
talking
about it."
Soviet Method:
"Set working methods in complicated rules and numerous authorizations.
Nothing
will therefore happen, for which no blame can be put on you."
Parkinson's Law (also known as "Thousand Principle"):
"Any corporation with a minimum one thousand (1,000) work force becomes
an autonomous entity, in which enough administrative paperwork is
generated
to make external contacts superfluous."
**********************************************************************
The well-known statement of Murphy's Law--"If something can go wrong, it
will"--turns out to be a corruption of its original formulation: "If
there's
a wrong way to do a thing, somebody will find it and do it that way."
(see
SCIENCE 83, Jan.-Feb.l983, p. 78) One of my favorite sourcebooks on
this subject is
Paul Dickson's THE OFFICIAL RULES, with its sequel THE OFFICIAL
EXPLANATIONS. I quote from "Gilb's Laws of Reliability":
(1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
(2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.
(3) The only difference between a fool and a criminal is that the fool
will
attack a system unpredictably and on a broader front.
(4) A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until
the
resulting unreliability becomes intolerable.
(5) Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to
their
inherent unreliability.
(6) The error-detection and -correction capabilities of any system serve
as a
key to understanding the types of errors it cannot handle.
(7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to
detectable
errors, which by definition are finite.
(8) All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise which is
impossible.
(9) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
probable
cost of errors, or until somebody insists on getting some useful work
done.

**********************************************************************
FIRST LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT:
Change is the status quo.
SECOND LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT:
Management by objectives is no better than the objectives.
THIRD LAW OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT:
A manager cannot tell if he is leading an innovative mob or being
chased by it.
FIRST LAW OF ADVICE:
The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired.
SECOND LAW OF DECISION MAKING:
Any decision is better than no decision.
THIRD LAW OF DECISION MAKING:
A decision is judged by the conviction with which it is uttered.
FIFTH LAW OF DECISION MAKING:
Decisions are justified by the benefits to the organization, but they
are
MADE by considering the benefits to the decision-makers.
FIRST LAW OF COMMUNICATION:
The purpose of the communication is to advance the communicator.
SECOND LAW OF COMMUNICATION:
The information conveyed is less important than the impression.
THIRD LAW OF SURVIVAL:
To protect your position, fire the fastest rising employees first.
PUTTS-BROOKS LAW:
Adding manpower to a late technology project only makes it later.
/* my favorite */
PARALLELS TO MURPHY'S LAW:
Anyone else who can be blamed should be blamed.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong faster with computers.
Whenever a computer can be blamed, it should be blamed.
**********************************************************************
An Abridged Collection of Interdisciplinary Laws
Abbott's Admonitions:
1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.
2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the
question.
Abrams's Advice:
When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Rule of Accuracy:
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if
you
know the answer.
Corollary:
Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.
Acheson's Rule of the Bureaucracy:
A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the
writer.
Acton's Law:
Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Ade's Law:
Anybody can win -- unless there happens to be a second entry.
Airplane Law:
When the plane you are on is late, the plane you want to transfer
to is
on time.
Albrecht's Law:

Social innovations tend to

the level of minimum
tolerable well being.
Algren's Precepts:
Never eat at a place called Mom's.
Never play cards with a man named Doc.
And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you.
Allen's Law of Civilization:
It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
coming up it.
Agnes Allen's Law:
Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
Fred Allen's Motto:
I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal
lobotomy.
Alley's Axiom:
Justice always prevails . . . three times out of seven.
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 ass in alligators, it is difficult
to
remind yourself that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
Allison's Precept:
The best simple-minded test of experience in a particular area is
the
ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in
that
area.
Anderson's Law:
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you
looked at it in the right way, did not become still more
complicated.
Andrews's Canoeing Postulate:
No matter which direction you start it's always against the wind
coming
back.
Law of Annoyance:
When working on a project, if you put away a tool that you're
certain
you're finished with, you will need it instantly.
Anthony's Law of Force:
Don't force it, get a larger hammer.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner
of the
workshop.
Corollary:
On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first always strike
your
toes.
Laws of Applied Confusion:
1) The one piece that the plant forgot to ship is the one that

supports

75% of the balance of the shipment.

Corollary:
Not only did the plant forget to ship it, 50% of the time they
haven't
even made it.
2) Truck deliveries that normally take one day will take five when
you
are waiting for the truck.
3) After adding two weeks to the schedule for unexpected delays,
add two
more for the unexpected, unexpected delays.
4) In any structure, pick out the one piece that should not be
mismarked
and expect the plant to cross you up.
Corollaries:
1) In any group of pieces with the same erection mark on it,
one
should not have that mark on it.
2) It will not be discovered until you try to put it where the
mark
says it's supposed to go.
3) Never argue with the fabricating plant about an error. The
inspection prints are all checked off, even to the holes
that
aren't there.
Approval Seeker's Law:
Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least.
The Aquinas Axiom:
What the gods get away with, the cows don't.
Army Axiom:
Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.
Army Law:
If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, pick it up; if you
can't pick
it up, paint it.
Ashley-Perry Statistical Axioms:
1) Numbers are tools, not rules.
2) Numbers are symbols for things; the number and the thing are not
the
same.
3) Skill in manipulating numbers is a talent, not evid ????
**********************************************************************
Klipstein's Laws:
Applied to General Engineering:
1) A patent application will be preceded by one week by a similar
application made by an independent worker.
2) Firmness of delivery dates is inversely proportional to the
tightness
of the schedule.
3) Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
Velocity, for example, will bexpr furper frtnigh ) Any ut
tolengthbe to short Appled to ypingand Pron: lerane
acluectionally
toward maximum difficulty to assemble.
2) If a project requires n components, there will be n-1 units in
stock.

3)
4)
5)
fuse by

A motor will rotate in the wrong direction.

A failsafe circuit will destroy others.
A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the

blowing first.
6) A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final
inspection.