Murphy’s law
E602471
Murphy’s law is the adage that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, often cited to express the inevitability of errors or misfortune.
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
adage
ⓘ
epigram ⓘ proverb ⓘ |
| appearsIn |
books of quotations
ⓘ
cartoons ⓘ jokes ⓘ self-help and business literature ⓘ |
| appliedAs |
argument for testing and quality assurance
ⓘ
heuristic for planning ⓘ motivation for robust design ⓘ warning to anticipate failure ⓘ |
| associatedWithField |
aerospace testing
ⓘ
systems engineering ⓘ |
| associatedWithPerson | Edward A. Murphy Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| culturalOrigin | United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| describes |
inevitability of errors
ⓘ
perceived bias toward negative outcomes ⓘ pessimistic expectation of failure ⓘ tendency of things to go wrong ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeName |
Finagle’s law
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Sod’s law NERFINISHED ⓘ if anything can go wrong, it will ⓘ law of selective gravity NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasConnotation |
dark humor
ⓘ
fatalism ⓘ pessimism ⓘ |
| hasGeneralization | Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, at the worst possible time ⓘ |
| hasNotableFormulation | If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it that way ⓘ |
| hasShortForm | Anything that can go wrong will go wrong ⓘ |
| influenced |
Murphy’s law variants
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
engineering folklore ⓘ humorous pseudo-laws ⓘ office humor ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
confirmation bias
ⓘ
defensive design ⓘ entropy ⓘ law of unintended consequences ⓘ pessimism bias ⓘ redundancy in engineering ⓘ risk assessment ⓘ safety margins ⓘ second law of thermodynamics ⓘ |
| usedInContext |
aerospace engineering
ⓘ
engineering ⓘ everyday life ⓘ popular culture ⓘ project management ⓘ risk management ⓘ software development ⓘ |
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.