Murphy of Murphy's Law

[DarthTurk]

I’d always taken it for granted until a friend asked me who Murphy was. Who exactly was Murphy and is he known for anything besides being the world’s biggest pesimist (or realist, depending on how you look at it )?

[raygirvan]

The Fastest Man on Earth at the Annals of Improbable Research argues that it was a Captain Ed Murphy, who was involved in rocket sled trials and found that the “what can go wrong, will” rule applied to wiring up transducers (the actual term Murphy’s Law being coined by a colleague, John Paul Stapp).

[Fuji_Kitakyusho]

Contrary to popular belief, Murphy’s laws were not actually compiled by Murphy, but rather by another man who happened to have the same name.

[samclem]

*Originally posted by Fuji Kitakyusho *
**Contrary to popular belief, Murphy’s laws were not actually compiled by Murphy, but rather by another man who happened to have the same name. **

Absolutely not true.

This is still a term that is being researched by scholars. But I’ve never seen anything that would indicate a second ‘Murphy.’
I’ll post in a bit the current state of affairs as concerns ‘Murphy’s Law.’

[Exapno_Mapcase]

C’mon, sam. Don’t you recognize the old academic joke about the origin of the Odyssey and Iliad that says it wasn’t written by Homer but by another poet of the same name?

[samclem]

Here’s what is know for sure.

The tests took place in 1949/50.

The phrase can only be traced, in print, to 1955.

Anthing earlier would be appreciated.

And i’t not clear that Murphy or Stapp coined the term.

[Johnny_L.A]

Good article, raygirvan. I posted a link to it in MPSIMS last September, but nobody was interested.

[Thylacine]

The Word Detective has a different take on it

According to the autobiographical book “Into Orbit” by former pilot and astronaut (not to mention Senator) John Glenn, "‘Murphy’ was a fictitious character who appeared in a series of educational cartoons put out by the U.S. Navy…

<snip>

Senator Glenn’s recollection has not been verified,

[samclem]

Senator Glenn’s recollection has not been verified,

Actually, it’s been sent to the recycle bin as untrue. Sen. Glenn misremembered.

From a month-old article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer…

He{Glenn} said America’s original astronauts helped spread the story that Murphy was a fictional character. And it turns out that retired Sen.
John Glenn, America’s first astronaut to orbit the Earth, was the
source of the story that Murphy was an all-thumbs mechanic.

Glenn wrote in “We Seven” - co-authored in 1962 by the seven
original astronauts - that Murphy was prone to making mistakes in the
Navy educational cartoons. In a chapter titled “Glitches in Time Save
Trouble,” Glenn said the cartoon Murphy would put propellers on
backward or forget to tighten bolts.

“He finally became such an institution that someone thought up a
principle of human error called Murphy’s Law. It went like this: Any
part that can be installed wrong will be installed wrong at some point
by someone,” Glenn wrote 41 years ago.

In an interview this week, Glenn said he had probably made a
mistake" I should have made that Dilbert instead of Murphy.

I never knew
that Murphy’s Law had anything to do with a real person," Glenn said.