For creating a “law” for stuff to go wrong.
Definition: Murphy’s Law—if anything can go wrong, it will.
The suggestive saying was named after Capt. Edward A. Murphy, an engineer working on an Air Force project at Edwards Air Force Base. A rocket deceleration test failed to record needed data. Murphy discovered the failure was the result of his assistant wiring a transducer backwards. Murphy got a little pissed about the mistake and said, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.” The project manager wrote this down on his list of “laws” and called it Murphy’s Law.
Shortly afterward, Dr. John Paul Stapp, one of the test riders for the deceleration track, was in an important press conference. He was asked a question regarding safety and how the test riders avoided being hurt during the rocket-sled tests. He said that their good safety record was due to a firm belief in Murphy’s Law and the challenge to try and evade it. The saying stuck after being published in a few journals.
Thanks a lot, Murph! You gave it a name…
Now anything that can go wrong will, at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible way. All because of your little hissy fit!
Here are a few other unnecessary sayings that precipitate bad things happening just because they were given a name: crying wolf, the domino effect, alcoholism, schadenfreude, and the Bermuda triangle. Even when someone says, “Don’t drop that!”, you are certainly ten times more likely to. When analyzed, it’s more of a chicken-and-egg debate—if there were no chicken there would be no egg—hence no debate. What we have learned is that when you drop a piece of toast with peanut butter on the floor, you can be sure it will land on the bad side. But let’s say it actually landed gooey side up (and you took the three-second rule into account). Would you still eat it anyway?