MURPHY´S FIRST TEN LAWS

Murphy´s First Law: Nothing is as easy as it looks.

Murphy´s Second Law: Everything takes longer than you think.

Murphy´s Third Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.

Murphy´s Fourth Law: 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.

Murphy´s Fifth Law: If anything just can not go wrong, it will any way.

Murphy´s Sixth Law: If there are four possible ways in which a thing can go wrong, and you prepare for these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

Murphy´s Seventh Law: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Murphy´s Eighth Law: If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Murphy´s Ninth Law: Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Murphy´s Tenth Law: It is impossible to make things foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.

MURPHY'S PARADOX
Doing it the hard way is always easier.

O' TOOLE'S COROLLARY
Murphy was an optimist.

GINSBERG'S THEOREM
1) You can´t win.
2) You can´t break even.
3) You can´t even quit the game.

CHISOLM'S LAW
Proposals as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others.
Corollary 1: If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.
Corollary 2: If you do something which you are sure will meet everyone´s approval,
somebody won´t like it.
Corollary 3: Procedures devised to implement the purpose won´t quite work.

THE ARMY AXIOM
Any order that can be misunderstood has been misunderstood.

CRANE'S LAW
There ain´t such thing as a free lunch.

WESKIMEN'S LAW
There´s never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over.

THE FIFTH RULE
You have taken yourself too seriously.

JONE'S LAW
The man who can smile when things go wrong, has thought of someone he can blame it on.

JONE'S MOTTO
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

LAW OF HIERARCHICAL COMMUNICATIONS
The inevitable result of improved communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a
vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

BOSS' LAW
Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.

SCHOPENHAUR'S LAW OF ENTROPY
If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full
of wine, you get sewage.

The SIDDARTHA PRINCIPLE
You cannot cross a river in two strides.

WEBER'S DEFINITION
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.

TERMAN'S LAW OF INNOVATION
If you want a track team to win the high jump, you find one person who can jump seven feet, not seven people who can jump one foot.

LEFTY GOMEZ'S LAW
If you don't throw it, they can't hit it.

PATRY'S LAW
If you know something can go wrong, and take due precautions against it, something else will go wrong.

RICHARD'S COMPLEMENTARY RULES OF OWNERSHIP
1. If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
2. If you throw anything away, you will need it as soon as it is no longer accessible.
Erbenich's Extension: If you keep it and you need it, you won't be able to find it.

LOWERY'S LAW
If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

ROGERS' LAW
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

HOWE'S LAW
Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
Munder's Corollary: Everyone who does not work has a scheme that does.

THE 90/90 RULE OF PROJECT SCHEDULES
The first 90 percent of the task takes 10 percent of the time. The last 10 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time.

O' BRIEN'S LAW
Nothing is ever done for the right reasons.

LEVY'S NINTH LAW
Only God can make an random selection.

MEADOW'S MAXIM
You can't push on a rope.

SPENCER'S LAWS OF DATA
1. Anyone can make a decision given enough facts.
2. A good manager can make a decision without enough facts.
3. A perfect manager can operate in perfect ignorance.

HARDIN'S LAW
You can never do just one thing.

ROBERTS' AXIOM
Only errors exist.

LERMAN'S LAW OF TECHNOLOGY
Any technical problem can be overcome given enough time and money.
Lerman's Corollary: You are never given enough time or money.

FINAGLE'S EIGHTH RULE
Teamwork is essential. It allows you to blame someone else.

FIRST RULE OF ACTING
Whatever happens, look as if you intended it to happen.

JILLY AND ROB'S CONCLUSION
Life is too serious to be taken very seriously.

FIRST LAW OF APPLIED TERROR
When reviewing your notes before an exam, the most important ones will be illegible.

LAW OF THE INDIVIDUAL
Nobody really cares or understands what anyone else is doing.

BEACH'S LAW
No two identical parts are alike.

HANE'S LAW
There is no limit to how bad things can get.

JAY'S FIRST LAW OF LEADERSHIP
Changing things is central to leadership, and changing them before anyone else does is creative leadership.

PAUL'S LAW
You can't fall off the floor.

EVANS' LAW
If you can keep your head when everyone about you is losing his, then you just don't understand the problem.

THINE'S LAW
Nature abhors people.

QUANTIZATION REVISION OF MURPHY'S LAW
Everything goes wrong all at once.
 

Now for some technological laws for those computer buffs...

1. To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most.

2. All great discoveries are made by mistake.

3. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.

4. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

5. A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.

6. If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.

7. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.

8. The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical cord.

9. You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.

10. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

11. Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some darn fool discovers something which either abolishes the
system or expands it beyond recognition.

12. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

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

14. The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.

15. 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 it to be sure.

16. Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.

17. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

18. All's well that ends.

19. A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.

20. The first myth of management is that it exists.

21. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.

22. New systems generate new problems.

23. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

24. We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.

25. Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

26. Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work.

27. Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.

28. The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the
serviceman.

29. After all is said and done, a heck of a lot more is said than done.

30. 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.

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 darn well pleases.

35. The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the competition already has the order.

36. In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totalled correctly after 4:30pm on Friday. The correct total will become self-evident at 8:15am on Monday.

37. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches.

38. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

39. The only perfect science is hind-sight.

40. Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.

41. If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist.

42. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

43. When all else fails, read the instructions.

44. 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.

45. Everything that goes up must come down.

46. Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner.

47. Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way.

48. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.

49. The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management.
 

And some of "Murphy's Son-in-Laws" by Aruther Block

1. O'REILLY'S LAW OF THE KITCHEN
    Cleanliness is next to impossible.

2. LIEBERMAN'S LAW
    Everybody lies; but it doesn't matter, since nobody listens.

3. DENNISTON'S LAW
    Virtue is its own punishment.

4. GOLD'S LAW
    If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

5. HAND GUIDE TO MODERN SCIENCE
    If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology.
    If it stinks, it's chemistry.
    If it doesn't work, it's physics.

6. CONWAY'S LAW
     In any organization, there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

7. GREEN'S LAW OF DEBATE
    Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.

8. STEWART'S LAW OF RETROACTION
    It is easier to give forgiveness than permission.

9. HARRISON'S POSTULATE
    For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

10. HANLON'S RAZOR
     Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

11. MUIR'S LAW
     When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

12. FIRST RULE OF HISTORY
     History doesn't repeat itself - historians merely repeat each other.

13. FINSTER'S LAW
     A closed mouth gathers no feet.

14. OLIVER'S LAW OF LOCATION
     No matter where you go, there you are.

15. LYNCH'S LAW
      When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.

 16. GLYME'S FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
      The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.