Murphy’s Law, originating from the AeroSpace industry, is a message of hope, offering solutions to potential problems. It emphasizes the importance of designing things with only one correct way to use them, or making them usable regardless of orientation. Despite its optimistic nature, Murphy’s Law is often misinterpreted as the pessimistic Finagle’s Law which is “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong - at the worst possible moment”.
The Origin
During a 1949 US Air Force test to measure human G-force tolerance, a rocket sled experiment failed due to incorrectly installed sensors by a technician. This led Captain Edward A. Murphy Jnr. to proclaim (in a voice like thunder), “If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way”.
In the previous example, what if there’s only one way to install that sensor, it can’t be installed incorrectly, right. In such cases, another approach to counteract Murphy’s Law is to design something that remains functional regardless of the installation direction.
For instance, in 2012, Apple introduced the Lightning connector for its devices, which could be plugged in either way. This replaced the 30-pin one-way connector and offered superior durability compared to the micro-USB standard at the time.
Murphy’s Law
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
- Murphy’s Law suggests that if there’s a possibility for failure, it’s bound to happen eventually.
- It’s often used as a humorous way to acknowledge unexpected problems.
- Engineers, designers, and planners use it as a principle to anticipate and mitigate failures.
- Instead of seeing it as a prediction of doom, we can treat it as a reminder to stay flexible, plan ahead
Murphy's Law
If you don’t back up your files, your hard drive will eventually fail.
Find more examples here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/