4 things to know about Murphy’s Law.

You have probably gone through this a million times: The one day that you leave your house without an umbrella, it rains cats and dogs. You are on your way to procure something from a vending machine and it gets stuck! Every time you drop a slice of toast, it always falls with the buttery side down! Most of us can’t help feeling that it is a conspiracy of the universe against us. However, most of these occurrences can be explained through the Murphy’s Law, which states that:

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".

Here are 4 things that you need to know about this fascinating piece of law that governs our actions and also our minds!

1. Did the law come into existence just recently?

We are not the first ones to realise that these happens. Back in 1786, the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, had famously penned:

" The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men often go awry..."

                               To a Mouse: By Robert Burns; Picture by Sandy Millar: Unsplash

In 1884, the famous novelist, James Payn presented the example of bread and butter for the first time. However, it wasn’t until 1949 that Murphy’s law made itself known to the masses, thanks to the aerospace engineer, Edward Murphy, after whom the law was named.

2. Who was Edward Murphy? Wherein lies the origin of this law?

Murphy used to work for the US airforce and he was a part of iconic projects like the making of the Apache Helicopter. During one such project, he was trying to calculate the g-force which is a measure of the effect of the acceleration due to gravity, a person can bear when he/she stops abruptly after a flight. After several attempts, he modified, remodified the results but failed to get the desired outcome. He thereafter set out to inspect the connections that were designed by his assistant and lo and behold! The connections were all erroneous!

So Murphy famously exclaimed:

“If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it!”

Slowly but surely, this statement became famed and what had started off as a form of expression transitioned into a popular phrase that in itself is a representation of the inevitability of disasters!

3. All superstitions? Or scientific?

In the year of 1996, British physicist and science writer, Robert Mathews, proved after several experiments that the Murphy’s Law is more about pure physics than about bad luck.

Picture credits: Rohan Makhecha: Unsplash

From his paper, The tumbling toast, Murphy’s Law and the fundamental constants, it was proved that for a slice of buttered bread to not end up smashed on the floor, the table from where the piece of bread falls needs to be 2.5 metres tall. Only then will the bread rotate completely with its inherent rotational speed and will fall, buttered side up! However, no furniture seller sells tables this high.

4. What about human psychology?

Picture credits: Morgan Housel: Unsplash

Another facet of the Murphy’s law is related to the concept of negativity bias and selective memory. We as humans, tend to remember for long all the unfortunate things that happened to us and give them more importance than all the other thousand incidences that were on track before!

Mathews also talked about another foundation: The illusory correlation.

For example: When we are stuck in a traffic jam, we always have the feeling of being sandwiched in the slowest lane! This actually happens because we spend hours looking at and observing the fleet of cars going past us than looking at ourselves going past others!

A wrap up!

Although it may seem that the Murphy’s law has come into existence to explain all the negative incidents that happen in our lives accidentally, to justify to what extent we are “jinxed” or how exactly the universe is planning and plotting against us, the truth lies yonder and is much more scientific!

Picture credits: Jon Tyson: Unsplash

So which school of thought do you belong to?