# Anything that can go wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859 "2025-01-12T01:46:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/1 "2025-01-12T01:46:03Z")
Today would have been the 107th birthday of one Edward A. Murphy, Jr. ~~the lawyer~~ ; well the namesake of Murphy’s Law, the basic engineering principle that “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it” (or, in other words: “If anything can go wrong, it will”). There is a really interesting multi-part article that I would link to on how that came about - from rocket sled testing for the design of military ejection seats; however, the link is broken. 🤦‍♂️ ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/2 "2025-01-12T01:47:22Z")
Oh Edward! He got us again. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/3 "2025-01-12T02:47:28Z")
Here are several corollaries: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fgandon/miscellaneous/murphy/) ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/4 "2025-01-12T03:15:11Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it” I never knew that was the original quote. I paraphrase that as “if something can go catastrophically wrong, some idiot will come along to cause just that.” IOW blame is assigned to a random incompetent fuckup and not chance or providence. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/5 "2025-01-12T03:18:33Z")
They have O’Toole’s Commentary: > Murphy was an optimist. But they’re missing Goldberg’s Commentary on O’Toole’s Commentary: > O’Toole was an optimist. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/6 "2025-01-12T07:34:25Z")
Beckdawreks law: “If it can happen to anyone, it will happen to me, eventually” ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/7 "2025-01-12T13:45:22Z")
Over here, it’s more crudely referred to as “sod’s law” ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/8 "2025-01-12T15:06:34Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > however, the link is broken. 🤦‍♂️ Not [anymore](https://improbable.com/the-fastest-man-on-earth/)! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/9 "2025-01-12T15:51:03Z")
Great cite there Sir **Spidey**! Thanks for the extra sleuthing effort ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/10 "2025-01-12T21:12:52Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > I never knew that was the original quote. I paraphrase that as “if something can go catastrophically wrong, some idiot will come along to cause just that.” IOW blame is assigned to a random incompetent fuckup and not chance or providence. The original point wasn’t pessimism; it was engineering advice. Basically, you should design things so that they can’t be done wrong. The original context was an experiment with a bunch of sensors attached to cables, and every single cable was plugged in backwards, which resulted in no data whatsoever from that run of the experiment. A Murphy-compliant cable would either have had an asymmetrically-shaped plug so you couldn’t plug it in the wrong way, or control circuits that could correctly interpret the sensors no matter which way they were plugged in. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/11 "2025-01-13T14:26:19Z")
"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you still have their shoes” - Jack Handy ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/12 "2025-01-13T14:36:47Z")
I’m afraid he is often correct. ---
**Author:** ![RadioWave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/91b2a8/32.png) [@RadioWave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadioWave)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/13 "2025-01-13T14:43:53Z")
As an engineer at IBM, there was a similar saying “The average wait time for ‘That can never happen’ is seven months.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/14 "2025-01-13T15:09:59Z")
I recommend the book by Nick T. Spark. It used to be called _The Fastest Man On Earth - Why Everything You Know About Murphy’s Law is Wrong_, but apparently it being sold now as _A History Of Murphy’s Law_. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/15 "2025-01-13T17:12:26Z")
Don’t forget _“If you make something idiot-proof, someone will just make a better idiot.”_ ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/16 "2025-01-13T18:40:02Z")
I was about to post something similar: “The problem with trying to make something idiot-proof is that idiots are much more inventive than you are.” ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anything-that-can-go-wrong/1012859/17 "2026-01-11T19:54:42Z")
At least the [link](https://improbable.com/classics/the-fastest-man-on-earth/) works this year