Murphy's Laws and Other Observations

Murphy's Laws
1. If anything can go wrong, it will.
2. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most
damage will be the first one to go wrong.
3. If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
4. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and
circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
5. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
6. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
7. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
8. Mother Nature is a bitch.

O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws

Murphy was an optimist.

Ginsberg's Theorems
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws

Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.

Weiler's Law
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.

The Laws of Computer Programming

1. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
2. Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
3. If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
4. If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
5. Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
6. The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
7. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must
maintain it.
Pierce's Law
In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret, misconstrue, misprint, or not
evaluate any math or subroutines or fail to print any output on at least the first run through.

Corollary to Pierce's Law

When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the program will not yield the
desired output.

Addition to Murphy's Laws

In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.

Murphy's Technology Laws

1. You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
2. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
3. Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something
which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
4. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
5. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first
woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
6. The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of
the firm.
7. The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.
8. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows
absolutely everything about nothing.
9. Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a
bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
10. All great discoveries are made by mistake.
11. Always draw your curves, and then plot your reading.
12. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
13. All's well that ends.
14. A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
15. The first myth of management is that it exists.
16. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
17. New systems generate new problems.
18. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
19. We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
20. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
21. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
22. A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.
23. The faster a computer is, the faster it will reach a crashed state.
24. Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work.
25. Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or
even what book.
 26. The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator
and impossible for the serviceman.
27. To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.
28. After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
29. Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are
unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.
30. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that
works.
31. If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try multiplying by the page number.
32. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends
on human reliability is unreliable.
33. Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
34. Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity,
and other variables the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
35. If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.
36. The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has
the order.
37. In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after
4:30 p.m. on Friday.
The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
38. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.
39. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
40. The only perfect science is hind-sight.
41. Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
42. If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.
43. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
44. When all else fails, read the instructions.
45. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that will cause the most damage
will be the one to go wrong.
46. Everything that goes up must come down.
47. Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner.
48. Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.
49. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.
50. The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
51. Any attempt to print Murphy's laws will jam the printer.

Brook's Law
If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set!

Grosch's Law
Computing power increases as the square of the cost.

Golub's Laws of Computerdom

1. Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of estimating the corresponding
costs.
 2. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully
planned project takes only twice as long.
3. The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
4. Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of
progress.

Osborn's Law
Variables won't; constants aren't.

Gilb's Laws of Unreliability

1. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
2. Any system that depends upon human reliability is unreliable.
3. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition
are limited.
4. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until
someone insists on getting some useful work done.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology

There's always one more bug.

Troutman's Postulate
1. Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers.
2. Not until a program has been in production for six months will the most harmful error be
discovered.
3. Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order will be.
4. Interchangeable tapes won't.
5. If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a
method to get bad data past it.
6. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.

Weinberg's Second Law

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that
came along would destroy civilization.

Gumperson's Law
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.
Gummidge's Law
The amount of expertise varies in inverse ratio to the number of statements understood by the
general public.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can (old worms
never die, they just worm their way into larger cans).

Harvard's Law, as Applied to Computers

Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity and
other variables, the computer will do as it damn well pleases.

Sattinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.

Jenkinson's Law
It won't work.

Horner's Five Thumb Postulate

Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Cheop's Law
Nothing ever gets build on schedule or within budget.

Rule of Accuracy
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.

Zymurg's Seventh Exception to Murphy's Law

When it rains, it pours.

Pudder's Laws
1. Anything that begins well ends badly.
2. Anything that begins badly ends worse.
Westheimer's Rule
To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by
two and change the unit of measure to the next highest unit.
Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.

Stockmayer's Theorem
If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near impossible.

Atwoods Corollary
No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to keep.

Johnson's Third Law

If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue that contains the article, story or
installment you were most anxious to read.

Corollary to Johnson's Third Law

All of your friends missed it, lost it or threw it out.

Harper's Magazine Law

You never find the article until you replace it.

Brooke's Law
Adding manpower to late software makes it later.

Finagle's Fourth Law

Once a job is fooled up, anything done to improve it will only make it worse.

Featherkile's Rule
Whatever you did, that's what you planned.
Flap's Law
Any inanimate object, regardless of its position, configuration or purpose, may be expected to
perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are either entirely obscure or
else completely mysterious.