h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the fascinating things about Murphy's Law is that it is recursive. It applies to attempts to prove its existence. This means that if you deliberately drop a slice of toast in order to prove Murhphy's Law, the toast will land butter-side up, just to confound you. Unless, that is, you're dropping the toast to prove this application of Murphy's Law, in which case the toast will land butter-side down.

Murphy's Law doesn't have any truck with piffling concepts like causality. It knows in advance which aspect of the Law you'll try to disprove, and will make the toast land the wrong way up anyway. Don't try to cheat it, or you'll end up with a very messy carpet.

Alanis Morissette sang at length about Murphy's Law, but evidently decided that 'Isn't it an example of Murphy's Law, don't you think?' wasn't pithy enough for a chorus, and decided to take irony's name in vain instead.

I was always wondering about that Alanis Morrisette song... because it certainly wasn't irony... of course, This could explain why a whole generation of Americans don't understand the meaning of the word!

murphy was an optomist

It's like when the weather report says that it /probably/ won't rain today. If you bring an umbrella when you go out, it won't. If you don't, it will. A lot.

although i respect murphy, he really a great person (we serve together in the army), think about that:we could live a great life without those rules. WHY HE MADE THEM UP? to miserable our live?

The key to the toast/butter dilema is to wait until you've dropped the toast and THEN butter it.

As with all laws of physics/the universe/reality Murphy's law is not actually a law but a statement of observed events. Murphy did not make them up, he just put them into a nicely summarised set of statements that are easily understood. for example if it were the "buttered toast" law, then people who have never had toast would not understand their greater application of all of life. Murphy's law is particularly intriguing becuase it is always fulfilled - the disproof of the rule in fact proves it by the rule. Murphy therefore was very good at writing a succinct law and it is the whole of the universe that we should blame when things go wrong, not Murphy whom we should thank for being able to term the event "Murphy's law"

The chance of the bread falling butterside down is directly proportional to the value of the carpet.

Murphy's Law:
"If something can go wrong, it will"

aDvid's restatement of Murphy's Law:
"Even if something can't go wrong, it will"

aDvid's even more realistic restatement of Murphy's Law:
"If something absolutely can't go wrong, it will go absolutely wrong"

And when absolutely everything had gone wrong, a loud voice from the heavens said to me: "Smile... it can only do you good", so I did... and everything just became a living nightmare. I later woke up with my pillow half-eaten...