Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory.

Murphy's Law of Copiers: The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.

Murphy's Law of the Open Road: When there is a very long road upon which there is a one-way bridge placed at random, and there are only two cars on that road, it follows that: (1) the two cars are going in opposite directions, and (2) they will always meet at the bridge.

Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics: Things get worse under pressure.

The Murphy Philosophy: Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws: Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy's Constant: Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

Murphy's Corollaries

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious

Law of the Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary):

You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Corollary (Jenning):

The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

 

Commentaries

Hill's Commentaries on Murphy's Laws

1. If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care.
2. If we have nothing to lose by change, relax.
3. If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
4. If it doesn't matter, it does not matter.

O'Toole's Commentary

Murphy was an optimist.

 

NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law: You never run out of things that can go wrong.

 

 

Back