"Origin of Murphy's Law" Topic

The basis of Murphy's Law is that no matter how idiot-proof something is, there will always be an idiot who rises to the challenge. Murphy's Law today seems like an ages-old axiom. We know it today as, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." The truth is that it's not ages old, and only dates back to the Cold War-era U.S. Air Force…

Military: link

Colonel Murphy was long preceded by the long-suffering Corporal Sod

Private SHAfU

SNAFU is alive and well.

Totally in play yesterday at work.

I had always assumed that it was an affirmation of Clausewitz's theory of friction and dated back at least the early 19th Century.

The corollary to that is no piece of kit, whether weapon, radio or truck should be considered fully engineered until it has been "private proofed". Which essentially entails giving it to a couple of privates and seeing how long it takes them to break it or blow themselves up with it.

giving it to a couple of privates and seeing how long it takes them to break it or blow themselves up with it.

You get a faster result if you give it to a pair of young subalterns. I'd like a dollar for every time I had to say "Sir/Ma'am, please don't touch/turn/play with that!". It's amazing how quickly someone can put a torque driver out of calibration without even trying….

Murphy's Law….an Irish pub in Erlangen Germany, frequented by me many, many, years ago. It's where I fell in love with Guinness, a German bar maid, and for the only time in my life ever actually drank a German under the table.

link

Muphry's Law is even better