Murphy's law of friendship

Murphy's Law of Friendship




The correct, original Murphy's Law reads: "If there are two or more ways to do any kind of work, and one of those ways can give result then someone will do it." This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because it is forms less descriptive of the challenges of design for lusers. For example, you don't make a two-pin plug symmetrical and then label it `THIS WAY UP'; if it matters which way it is plugged in, then you make the design asymmetrical.This fullfilkl this law.



There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount, and somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong way around. Murphy then made the original form of his pronouncement, which the test subject (Major John Paul Stapp) quoted at a news conference a few days later.


Within months `Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too many years had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination, changing as they went.