“Fight Against Stupidity And
Bureaucracy”
After
yesterday’s rant I though it was time for something a little less intense
today. So in this post I am going to talk a bit about the Fourth Law Of
Thermodynamics.
Say what???
Don’t worry, if you have read any of my previous posts you will already be
familiar with this Law as I have highlighted many examples.
The Fourth
Law Of Thermodynamics is a derivative of Murphy’s Law, and can be defined as
follows:
“If anything can go wrong, it will
go wrong, especially under pressure.”
The
original Murphy’s Law actually reads:
“If there are two or more ways to do
something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will
do it that way.”
Although it
sounds Irish, Murphy's law seems to have originated with a Captain Edward A.
Murphy, who was an American engineer at Muroc, California (later named Edwards
Air Force Base). In 1949 he was working on a rocket sled project to test
the tolerances of the human body to acceleration and sudden braking. The
machinery kept failing mainly due to human error. For example in one experiment
that involved a set of sixteen accelerometers mounted on different parts of a
subject’s body. There were only two ways the sensors could be mounted and
Murphy found that someone had methodically glued all sixteen in place the wrong
way. Exasperated by the stupid technician, Murphy said, 'If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it.'
Air Force
Flight Surgeon, John Paul Stapp, picked up on Murphy's phrase and used at a
press conference. After that it was adopted first by others within the
aerospace industry, but gradually became a popular everyday saying.
As with any
good idea, Murphy's Law evolved to fit various scenarios.
For
example, the 1st Amendment states that,
“If there is a possibility of
several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the
one to go wrong.”
The 2nd
Amendment,
“If you realize that there are three
possible ways in which something can go wrong, and cover them all, then a
fourth, unprepared for way, will miraculously appear out of thin air.”
The 3rd
Amendment,
“When something breaks, the parts
damaged are in direct proportion to their value.”
And the 4th
Amendment,
“The failure does not appear until
the machinery has passed its final inspection.”
Finally there are what have been
called the “Lesser Known Murphy's Laws” which
include things like,
“Light travels faster than sound.
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.”
“He who laughs last, thinks slowest.”
“Change is inevitable, except from a
vending machine.”
“Those who live by the sword, get
shot by those who don't.”
“Nothing is foolproof to a
sufficiently talented fool.”
“The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have
a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get
it wrong.”
“If you lined up all the cars in the
world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or
six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.”
“If the shoe fits, get another one
just like it.”
“The things that come to those who
wait will be the things left by those who got there first.”
“Give a man a fish and he will eat
for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day, drinking
beer.”
“Flashlight: A metal tube used to
store dead batteries.”
“The shin bone is a device for
finding furniture in a dark room.”
“A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A
tax is a fine for doing well.”
