The first experiment already illustrates a truth of the theory, well confirmed by practice, what-ever can happen will happen if we make trials enough.
-
Augustus de Morgan,
1866
Murphy's Law is the most commonly used term for the infamously pessimistic maxim, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."
* The actual Murphy's Law is something different, although most people refer to it in this form, which is why we have Finagle's Law . However, on this wiki, it references quite a few things, so we've made this page to help people figure out which one they really want.
If you want...
- ...the trope as applied to fiction, it's under Finagle's Law.
- ...the webcomic, it's under Murphy's Law.
- ...the trope about a bed that traps people, it's Murphy's Bed.
- ...the UK drama series with James Nesbitt... you'll have to make a page for it.
- ...the law as laid down by Alex Murphy, that's RoboCop.
The actual Murphy's Law is more nearly "If parts can be assembled a right way and a wrong way, they will be assembled the wrong way." Study, for instance, the loss of several F-111 (TFX ) aircraft during the Vietnam War due to the backwards insertion of a graphite pin in the rudder assembly.
