Click the photo for a link to the amazon page, or this link for the ebook. Email Address. Skip to content. Home About Faq. Q: What kind of telescope would be needed to see a person on a planet in a different solar system? Posted on April 1, by The Physicist. Email Print Facebook Reddit Twitter. This entry was posted in -- By the Physicist , April Fools.
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July 16, at am. It postulates that Murphy was an optimist. John L. McCowen says:. May 20, at pm. June 8, at pm. October 22, at am. Trey Vives says:. However, this could be considered proof of Murphy's Law, since the fact that the perceived experimental results deviate significantly from what we know to be true means that something has obviously cocked the whole thing up.
IT MAY be that there is no validity to Murphy's Law, although most of us will claim otherwise, based on personal experience. However, the example of falling toast used by Paul Soper is not correct. In fact, buttered toast falling off a table will almost invariably fall buttered side down - toast knocked off a standard size table at any normal velocity will do exactly one half turn before hitting the floor.
DR HELD modestly declines to point out that he is the joint author, with P Yodzis, of what I believe is the first refereed academic paper to investigate - albeit light-heartedly - the truth behind Murphy's Law General Relativity and Gravitation, vol 13 No.
This paper shows that the law does apply to toast - contrary to widespread belief, and to the ill-conceived experiments performed on the "Q. I came across Dr Held's paper during my own research into Murphy's Law, whose outcome is reported in the April issue of Scientific American. I show there that some of the most famous manifestations of Murphy's Law are indeed based in fact, and are mathematically explicable.
They include Murphy's Law of Odd Socks "If odd socks can be created, they will be", deducible from combinatorics , and Murphy's Law of Maps "If the place you're seeking can lie in an awkward part of the map, it will do", deducible from simple geometry.
It is Murphy's Law which dictates that, as a piece of toast can land this way, sooner or later it will. Sod's Law is therefore a corollary of Murphy's Law. David Malaperiman, Grazeley, Berks. A technician named Edgar Murphy was working on a set of complex instrumentation for a new airplane.
This instrumentation included connections to a large number of temperature sensors, all of which had to be connected in the correct orientation. After he had worked with great effort for a long time making all the connections he tested his apparatus, and found, to his horror that all the connections were backwards. Whereupon, he uttered those inimitable words: "Anything that can go wrong, will!
Our beliefs regarding the probability of events happening is governed by their impact upon our lives. Run-of-the-mill events are not as well remembered as those of an unusual, bizarre, or more relevant to Murphy's Law , inconvenient nature. This tendency, which has been labelled the Availability Heuristic, predicts among other things , fear of flying we remember plane as opposed to other vehicle accidents, and the risk seems correspondingly far greater than it is , tolerance of high insurance policies we think burglary and car theft are more prevalent than they are , the continuing success of Camelot Inc.
It is, after all, heavier than the side without the butter. So Kipling was right -- a piece of buttered bread will always land butter-side down. In the next section, we'll look at Murphy's Law in math and science, and how the law can make the things we create safer and more reliable.
Murphy's Law is actually supported by an accepted natural law: entropy. This law is used most often in the study of thermodynamics -- how energy changes from one form to another -- and says that, in our universe, systems tend to end up in disorder and disarray.
Entropy, also called the second law of thermodynamics , supports Murphy's Law's claim that whatever can go wrong, will. While most of us appreciate Murphy's Law for its ability to explain our sense of helplessness during certain events, others see it as a tool.
At least one person sees it as a mathematical equation that can predict the chances of processes going awry. Joel Pel, a biological engineer at the University of British Columbia created a formula that predicts the occurrence of Murphy's Law.
The formula uses a constant equal to one, a factor that is unconstant, and a few variables. In an essay he wrote for Science Creative Quarterly, Pel uses the example of predicting the occurrence of Murphy's Law when a driver needs to drive his Toyota Tercel a distance of about 60 miles to his home in a rainstorm without the clutch going out.
Using Murphy's Equation, Pel comes up with an answer of 1, meaning the clutch on the Tercel will definitely go out in a rainstorm. While anyone familiar with a Tercel might've seen that coming, it's somehow comforting to know that it can also be predicted mathematically [source: Science Creative Quarterly ]. Murphy's Law reminds engineers, computer programmers and scientists of a simple truth: systems fail.
In some cases, a system's failure means that the experiment must be repeated. In other cases, the results of a failure can be much more costly. NASA has learned this over and over again. The space agency has had numerous failures, and although the number is proportionately small to its successes, the failures are often very costly. Ironically, in the case of one unmanned orbiting vessel, a set of sensors had two ways of being connected and -- just as with Murphy's original Gee Whiz test-- the sensors were all connected incorrectly.
When the sensors failed to operate the way they were designed, the parachutes that were meant to slow the spacecraft down didn't open, and the orbiter crashed into the desert [source: MSNBC ]. It's an instance like this, in conjunction with an awareness of Murphy's Law that has caused designers to install fail-safes. There are examples of fail-safes all around us. Some are systems that use limited choices to reduce errors, like the mismatched prong sizes on an electrical plug.
Others are mechanisms that prevent matters from going from bad to worse, like lawnmowers that have levers that must be held down in order for the mower to operate. If the person operating the mower lets go of the lever, the lawnmower stops running.
Fail-safes are also referred to as "idiot-proof. This leads us to the last law we'll relate to Murphy's: Grave's Law, which states, "If you make something idiot-proof, the world will create a better idiot.
For lots more information on Murphy's Law, including related articles and links, check out the next page. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close.
Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. How Murphy's Law Works. Contents Who was Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr.? Who was Captain Edward A.
Photo courtesy Edwards Air Force Base. Other Universal Truths " ". Etorre's Observation - The other line moves faster. Barth's Distinction - There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into types and those who don't. Acton 's Law - Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely Boob's Law - You always find something in the last place you look. Clarke's Third Law - Any sufficiently advanced society is indistinguishable from magic.
Franklin 's Rule - Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he will not be disappointed. Issawi's Law of the Path of Progress - A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. Mencken's Law - Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Patton's Law - A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Fatalism and the Appeal of Murphy's Law " ".
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