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The Origin of Murphy's Law

"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."

So who was Murphy anyway?

Born in 1917, Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of  the engineers on the rocket-sled experiments that were done by the United States  Air Force in 1949 to test human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981).

One experiment involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts  of the subject's body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its  mount. Of course, somebody managed to install all 16 the wrong way around.

Murphy then made the original form of his pronouncement, which the test  subject (Major John Paul Stapp) quoted at a news conference a few days later.

Within months, "Murphy's Law" had spread to various technical cultures  connected to aerospace engineering, and finally reached the Webster's dictionary  in 1958.

Tragically (and perhaps typically), the popular cliche we call "Murphy's Law"  was never uttered by Edward Murphy.

Murphy's Law applies to Murphy's Law, too

The traditional version of  Murphy's Law ("anything that can go wrong, will") is actually "Finagle's  Law of Dynamic Negatives." Finagle's Law was popularized by science  fiction author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of  asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke  involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.

Since then, the relentless truth inherent in Murphy's Law has become a  persistent thorn in the side of humanity.