Everybody knows Murphy's Law, but nobody knows it correctly, and perhaps that's because of Murphy's Law! Nor do most people know that Murphy was a real person! The following article appeared in "PPC-UCI News", the newsletter of the PPC Chapter at the University of California at Irvine. Although the rocket sled referred to in this article was part of a 1949 experiment, you can still see it at the Air & Space Museum in Alamogordo, New Mexico. If you visit, be sure to think of the following story as you look at the rocket sled! The plaque there mentions Stapp, but does not mention Murphy. Why? Well, you know! Enjoy this glimpse into The Way Things Were... -Joe- -------------------------------------------------------------------- MURPHY LIVES! by Robert L. Forward "PPC-UCI News", Mar/Apr 1983, pg 30 "If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it." -- Edward A. Murphy, Jr. To most people Murphy's Law is a joke. But to its originator, a real live person named Edward A. Murphy Jr., his law is a serious maxim about mankind's fallible interactions with machines. Anyone who confronts a piece of equipment for the first time, says Murphy, should find out if there is a way to bollix it. Can a part be put in backwards? Can two wires be crossed? If so, heed Murphy's admonition and make doubly sure that doing something the "wrong" way is difficult -- preferably impossible. Murphy's Law has been around since the first caveman realized that it was always the tenderest piece of meat that fell off his skewer into the fire. But not until 1949 was this law of nature given the name it bears today. In that year, Air Force Major John Paul Stapp was piloting a rocket sled in tests at Muroc (now Edwards) Air Force Base to find out how much force a human body could stand. Air Force Captain Edward Murphy had developed special harness fixtures that held 16 sensors to measure the accelerational forces bearing on Stapp's body. The rocket sled was fired, subjecting Stapp to g-forces approaching 40 times Earth's gravity. Stapp released his harness and with bloodshot eyes stumbled back to where a technician stood. "How many gees did the sensors read?" croaked Stapp. "Zero," said the technician nervously. Perplexed, Stapp telephoned Murphy, who flew back from Ohio to Muroc the next day. As it happened, there were two ways to glue each sensor to its fixture. Someone had methodically installed all 16 the wrong way. "If there are two or more ways to do something," Murphy pronounced, "and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it." Project engineer George Nichols immediately dubbed it Murphy's Law. At the press conference following the rocket sled test, Stapp mentioned that the project's excellent safety record could be credited to a firm belief in Murphy's Law. Within a few months, Murphy's Law was being mentioned in aerospace manufacturer's ads, and the Flight Safety Foundation began to quote it in their official bulletins. Then the humorous variations began to appear. The most popular version - "If something can go wrong, it will" - is anathema to the very serious Edward Murphy. Its fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable perverts his original concept of a sort of moral to help prevent accidents. As a reliability engineer for Hughes Helicopters Inc., Murphy's current job is to make sure that his law doesn't work its will on helicopters. He has long since abandoned hope that he will be popularly recognized as the creator of the law that bears his name. It seems to be his fate just because he's stuck with an ordinary name like Murpy.