Scientists Define Murphy's Law

Jesrad writes "A mathematician, a psychologist and an economist commissioned by British Gas have finally put into mathematical terms what we all knew: that things don't just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moment.The formula, ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)), indicates that to beat Murphy's Law (a.k.a. Sod's Law) you need to change one of the parameter: U for urgency, C for complexity, I for importance, S for skill, F for frequency and A for aggravation. Or in the researchers' own words: "If you haven't got the skill to do something important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going wrong will particularly aggravate you, make certain you know how to do it." Don't you like it when maths back up common sense ?"

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INTERESTING ADDENDUM FROM RBL

[sqwrell]

INTERESTING ADDENDUM FROM RBL (first featured in RBL's KISS Guide to
Windows, 1999): http://rblevin.net

It's ironic. One of the world's favorite axioms on the inevitability of
failure is itself an example of such inevitability. It's Murphy's Law, most
often stated as "anything that can go wrong, will." The irony: That's not
Murphy's Law at all. It's "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives," devised by
the famous science fiction author Larry Niven. The real Murphy's Law was
coined sometime around 1949 by USAF engineer Edward A. Murphy Jr.

Murphy was part of a team of USAF engineers working on a project that tested
the effects of extreme G-forces on the human body. One such test involved
mounting 16 sensors to 16 different parts of the test subject's body. Each
sensor could be connected in one of two ways: Correctly or incorrectly. On
the first run, a technician installed all 16 sensors backwards, after which
Murphy issued his now-famous maxim: "If there are two or more ways to do
something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone
will do it." Someone did, and now Finagle's Law is almost always misrepresented as Murphy's.