chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot) (11/05/84)
If the _A_Stress_Analysis_of_a_Strapless_Evening_Gown_ article about "Chisolm's
Laws" has a copyright date of 1958, then they are still Murphy's Laws. Murphy
formulated his laws much earlier, ('40's ?) while he was doing something like
blowing up missiles at Redstone for some branch of the government. There is a
thin book about Murphy's Laws which has a description of how he came up with
them.
Sorry to jump on the bandwagon without a copy of _Books_In_Print_ handy,
but I was compelled to defend a fellow desert-born (that is, Murphy's Laws).
Oh, bury me no-o-o-t in the Ant'lope Valle-e-e-ey,
L S Chabot
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shadow: [ISSN 0018-9162 v17 #10 p7, bottom vt100, col3, next to next to last]robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (11/06/84)
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A progress report on Murphy: Numerous people have sent me similar
stories indicating that Murphy was a real person who said of a
specific individual, something like "if there's a way to do it wrong,
he'll find it." Apparently Murphy has been interviewed in a
magazine within the last five years. Can anyone help me with
a reference? Following the suggestion of:
eosp1!{allegra, seismo}!rochester!stuart (Stu Friedberg)
I will be looking in the Guide to Periodical Literature, last 1-5 yrs,
especially 2-3 years ago, perhaps Time or Newsweek, or (another
suggestion) an Engineering magazine.
If people's recollections are accurate, I expect to find that Murphy
predates Chisolm by about four years. Then again...
(For those who missed my previous posting, Francis Chisolm wrote a piece
between 1958 and 1961, reprinted in "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless
Evening Gown", that makes it sound as if he is the discoverer of most
of "Murphy's laws". I am trying to trace the origins of Murphy.)
- Toby Robison
allegra!eosp1!robison
or: decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison
alternate: princeton!eosp1!robisonmauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney) (11/06/84)
> There have been several notes on the net recently about a book, > "A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown", a collection of > Science Humor edited by Robert A. Baker, and published in 1963 by > Prentice-Hall. So I got it out of the library to reread. The very > first piece presents a number of "laws" that I am sure you will > recognize: > > If anything can go wrong, it will. > If anything just can't go wrong, it will anyway. > ... > > The author of this piece, Francis P. Chisolm, describes these as > CHISOLM'S LAWS. His piece is republished from something entitled > "Motive" (no date given), and the piece is called "The Chisolm Effect". > > Today we know these (universally?) as Murphy's laws. > > When did Murphy become the author? Is Chisolm the real author? How > did he come to be forgotten? Why isn't he (or why aren't his heirs) > fighting to recover his authorship? Could it be (as my daughter > Naomi suggested) that: SOMETHING WENT WRONG? > If you look again at The Chisholm Effect, you will see that Chisholm cites Murphy's Law : "It anything can go wrong, it will happen during a demonstration". Chisholm expands this idea. In the absence of other information, we can conclude that Murphy's Law is older and more restricted that Chisholm's. "Murphy's Law" has a better ring to it though, so when commercial interests started running this joke into the ground with "Murphy's Law of Pencil Sharpeners" and "Murphy's Law of Asynchronous Distributed Computing" they called them all Murphy's Laws. > If the _A_Stress_Analysis_of_a_Strapless_Evening_Gown_ article about "Chisolm's > Laws" has a copyright date of 1958, then they are still Murphy's Laws. Murphy > formulated his laws much earlier, ('40's ?) while he was doing something like > blowing up missiles at Redstone for some branch of the government. There is a > thin book about Murphy's Laws which has a description of how he came up with > them. I don't know who Murphy was, but I wouldn't believe anything I read in a book about Murphy's Laws. In any case, you can bet that Murphy (if indeed there ever was a Murphy) had nothing to do with most of the statements attributed to him. -- Jon Mauney, mcnc!ncsu!mauney North Carolina State University Mauney's Law: If a good idea can be ruined, it will be. Corollary: People will buy it.
wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (11/07/84)
Actually, when you get right down to it, Murphy (whoever he was) did not formulate the 'laws'. They were postulated by engineers and others working at Redstone Arsenal during the early days of trials with captured German rockets. Murphy apparently was an engineer or worker on the project who did not get things quite right, if he actually existed at all. The name became the butt of many jibes and taunts at first. Later, anytime something went wrong, which it did with regularity on the project, Murphy was given the blame. Thus, a legend began to grow. The original book on Murphy's Laws came out in the 50's and contained a biographical sketch of Dr. Murphy. It was hilarious. The legend of Murphy grew and expanded over the years and has become even better known than the once legendary Kilroy. T. C. Wheeler
res@ihuxn.UUCP (Rich Strebendt) (11/09/84)
In response to: | Murphy apparently was an engineer or | worker on the project who did not get things quite right, if he | actually existed at all. WRONG WRONG WRONG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There really was a Mr. Murphey, and he really did state the law that is the foundation of Murphey's Laws. He was an engineer on the project that was testing the effects of high G forces on the human body. They were accellerating a Col. Stapf (spelling is probably all wrong, but may be close) on a sled with rockets and filming and telemetering information during the tests. After the first such test it was found that absolutely no telemetry data was recorded because a technician had plugged all of the connectors together backwards - something that the design of the connectors did not prevent. Mr. Murphey (perhaps Dr.) made the observation that if it was possible for something to be done wrong, it would be done wrong. The rest of "Murphey's Laws" are elaboration an embellishment on this observation. Rich Strebendt ihuxn!res
ron@logico.UUCP (Ron Moore) (11/10/84)
The following may not be a definitive source for Murphy's Laws, but it agrees
with what I have heard from random sources:
From the preface of "Murphy's Law, and other reasons why things go wrong"
by Arthur Bloch, Price/Stern/Sloan Publishers, 1977:
... Our finest scholars, experts in the fields of linguistics and
folk history, have tried and failed to determine the origin of Murphy's
Law. Who was I to argue with such a record?
Resigned as I was to go to print without resolving these burning
questions, I was most surprised to receive the following letter from
a certain Mr. George Nichols of Southern California:
Dear Arthur Bloch:
Understand you are going to publish a book, "Murphy's Law - And
Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong". Are you interested in
interested in including the true story of the naming of Murphy's
Law?
And, when I responded in the affirmative:
The event occurred in 1949 at Edwards Air Force Base, Muroc,
California, during Air Force Project MX981. This was Col. J. P.
Stapp's experimental crash research testing on the track at North
Base. The work was being accomplished by Northrop Aircraft, under
contract from the Aero Medical Lab at Wright Field. I was Northrop's
project manager.
The Law's namesake was Capt. Ed Murphy, a development engineer from
Wright Field Aircraft Lab. Frustration with a strap transducer which
was malfunctioning due to an error in wiring the strain gage 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 at the Lab. I
assigned Murphy's Law to the statement and the associated variations.
... A couple of weeks after the "naming" Col. Stapp indicated, at a
press conference, that our fine safety record during several years
of simulated crash force testing was the result of a firm belief in
Murphy's Law, and our consistent effort to deny the inevitable. The
widespread reference to the Law in manufacturers' ads within only
a few months was fantastic - and Murphy's Law was off and running
wild.
Sincerely,
George E. Nichols
Reliability & Quality Assurance Mgr.
Viking Project
Jet Propulsion Lab - NASA
Read the book, it is excellant. There are now three volumes of Murphy's
Laws by Arthur Bloch.
--
Ron Moore (818) 887-4950
Logicon, Operating Systems Division
6300 Variel Ave. Suite H
Woodland Hills, Ca. 91367
{the.world}!trwrb!logico!ronfaunt@saturn.UUCP (Doug Faunt) (11/11/84)
I guess I'll add my two bits. All connectors in military aircraft are SUPPOSED to be different, so that things can't be misconnected. This incldes such things as hydraulic lines. This is refered to as "Murphy-proofing". It doesn't always work. I found a case in a F4 where the radar indicator, and attitude control display could be plugged in to each others cable. The radar then indicated a problem in the transmitter, and the attitude system "passed" self-check. -- ...!hplabs!faunt faunt%hplabs@csnet-relay HP is in no way responsible for anything I say here. In fact, it may have been generated by a noisy 'phone line. My entry for official theme music of the net: "Chariots of Fire"
brat@gitpyr.UUCP (Steven Goldberg) (11/13/84)
> ... Our finest scholars, experts in the fields of linguistics and > folk history, have tried and failed to determine the origin of Murphy's > Law. Who was I to argue with such a record? What the heck is going on here? Can you imagine just how many people might have come up with the exact same set of "laws" over the past couple of centuries alone? It's silly to try to figure out who originally said them and why. Granted, where the name "Murphy" came from is interesting, but it's all tongue-in-cheek humor that anyone could have said after a hard day at the office. Steven
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (11/18/84)
For those interested in the various Laws of Natural Disaster, I can
recommend "The Official Rules: the definitive, annotated collection
of laws, principles, and instructions for dealing with the real world"
compiled by Paul Dickson, New York: Delacorte Press 1978.
(To which I have added Taylor's Law: "If it looks like a law,
it probably isn't; if it is a law, it is probably not valid;
if it is a valid law, it is this one.")
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmtmark@uf-csv.UUCP (mark fishman [fac]) (11/20/84)
What law do you suppose accounts for the curious phenomenon that, when asked to provide an account of the provenience of Murphy's Law, no two members of the net come up with the same answer? No, don't tell me, I'll have it in a minute...