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.
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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.