Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Murphy's Law will, I'm sure, make it difficult to enter the
    explanation here.
    
    (See .1 as an example.)
    >M

    There was a Timewatch special or Antenna or Horizon or some such TV
    programme on just this point quite recently. I didn't take a lot
    of it in, but there was plenty of newsreel footage of aircraft
    taking off or landing or both - I think it may have been some
    early ('30s?) USAF research program that claims to have codified
    the law; I wasn't convinced, so didn't retain much of the info.
    
    Maybe the programme will be repeated.
    
    b

    >Maybe the programme will be repeated.
    
    But only when you're out and your VCR's broken.

    G'day,
     As I recall 'twas one Murphy, member of USAF who read the manual to
    change engine oil read
    
    
    
    page 1
    
    ...
    To change the oil, first remove the engine
    
    
    page 2
    oil inlet cover panel. 
    ...
    
    
    derek
    
    

    If I recall correctly, Murphy was a rather senior person (who was
    actually qualified too -- shows how long ago that was, when seniority
    was related to qualifications), who formulated the law in regards to
    one of his subordinates who was especially incompetent:
    if there was any way to screw something up, that guy would find it.
    
    Murphy's law is supposed to work recursively too:  if you expect
    something to go wrong, then it will go wrong differently.  But as
    you can see from .1, Murphy's recursive law failed.  I hit Control-Y
    at a time that I thought might do it, and it caused exactly the kind
    of failure that I was trying for.  It entirely failed to recursively
    fail.  That's not supposed to happen.  Now just to make things worse,
    I'll bet this reply will get posted properly.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    P.S.  .5 is more superb than any owl.

    Murphy was an optimist.
    
    ed

I have kept for years a copy of an article titled "The Contributions of Edsel Murphy to 
the Understanding of the Behavior of Inanimate Objects", written by a D. L. Klipstein.  The 
copier, of course, cut off the name of the periodical at the bottom of the page, so I have no way 
of tracing it to the source.  However, I enjoyed it when I first saw it, and have continued to 
admire the perspicacity of the author as I have gained experience.

Among other gems is this brief paragraph, which succinctly codifies Murphy's Law:

" As is well known to those versed in the state-of-the-art, Murphy's Law states that "If anything 
can go wrong, it will."  Or, to state it in more exact mathematical form:

		1 + 1 <graphical symbol> 2

where <graphical symbol> is the mathematical symbol for hardly ever."

By and large, I have found this to be true.

    .9 is a demonstration of Murphy's law, in that its lines are longer
    than the 80-column width of a standard terminal.  I can't make it all
    out...
    
    I don't still have a copy of the article, but I remember that the
    graphical symbol in my copy was a hand pointing to the right.
    
    The article lists dozens of corrollaries of Murphy's Law, including
    this one which every parent has experienced when assembling a toy for
    Christmas morning:
    
    "Tolerances will accumulate unidirectionally toward maximum difficulty
    of assembly."
    
    -dick

    G'day,
     I recall that article.... I was given a copy in September or October
    1967!!!! (I had just joined a new company so can time it fairly well).
    
    
    Included various supporting corrollaries.....
    
    
    such as the law of selective gravity
    
    and such wonderments as " If a component is required in quantities of
    N for a project, they will only be available in packs of N-1 "
    
    
    
    and of course that was later superceded by Cole's Law
    
    
    derek

    I guess it's rather useless to suggest that this note belongs in
    conference FOO::MURPHYS_LAW, because node FOO is always down.