Murphy’s Law: What It Means and Where It Really Came From

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You’ve likely heard Murphy’s law time and time again. But maybe you never knew where it came from, or who Murphy actually was.

And no, it did not originate from the classic Tom Cruise flick Cocktail. However, I did really enjoy it.

The real story has a rocket sled, sensors fitted the wrong way round and a fair bit of arguing. Here’s what actually happened.

Jump to:

• What Murphy’s law means
• The 1949 rocket sled
• Who was Murphy?
• Older than Murphy
• Is Murphy’s law Irish?
• Sod’s law and other cousins
• The butter-side-down toast
• How to avoid it
• FAQ

Murphy’s law meaning: what does it actually mean?

In plain terms, if something can go wrong, sooner or later it will. People usually say it with a sigh, after the toast has hit the floor.

It isn’t a law of science. It’s a rule of thumb, half joke and half warning.

The everyday version is gloomy. The original was practical: if a part can be fitted the wrong way, someone will, so design it so they can’t.

A few everyday examples:

• You leave the umbrella at home on a sunny morning, and it lashes rain by lunchtime.
• You’re running late, so you hit every red light in town.
• You buy a new car and it breaks down the next day.

No doubt, reading this, you have experienced Murphy’s law in some shape or form. Comment below with your experience.

Plenty of movies feel like Murphy’s law is running the show too.

My picks would be The Hangover, Groundhog Day, The Pursuit of Happyness (great movie!) and, of course, Cocktail. Are there any other movies that you have seen that relate to Murphy’s law? Comment below and let me know.

Where Murphy’s law came from: the 1949 rocket sled

The usual story starts at Muroc, a test base in the California desert later renamed Edwards Air Force Base. The year was 1949, though some accounts say 1948.

The Air Force’s Project MX981 tested how much sudden deceleration a human body could survive.

The rig was a rocket sled nicknamed the “Gee Whiz”. Its star rider was John Paul Stapp, the Air Force doctor who insisted on riding it himself.

The sensors that were wired backwards

Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr. was an engineer based at Wright Field in Ohio. He came to Muroc briefly with strain gauges to measure the forces on the rider’s harness.

The story goes that the gauges were installed the wrong way round. The test ran, and they read zero.

David Hill, an engineer who was there, told the writer Nick T. Spark that Murphy said: “If there’s any way they can do it wrong, they will.”

That was aimed at the technician. Years later, in a radio interview, Murphy took the blame himself and admitted he couldn’t remember his exact words.

Spark’s 2003 research found the accounts disagree on nearly everything, from the number of gauges to who said what.

Who gave it the name?

George Nichols, an engineer on the project, said he named it. Murphy said it was Stapp. The two men never agreed.

Weeks later, Stapp is said to have told a press conference that the team’s safety record came from taking Murphy’s law seriously. Accounts of what he said vary.

In a 1983 People magazine interview, Murphy said that if one way of doing a job ends in disaster, “then somebody will do it that way.”

Notice it’s a warning, not a moan. According to Spark, Murphy saw his law as a rule for defensive design. Assume the worst, then design it out.

In 2003 Stapp, Murphy and Nichols shared the Ig Nobel Prize in Engineering “for jointly giving birth in 1949 to Murphy’s Law”. Murphy’s son accepted for his late father.

Who was Murphy in Murphy’s law?

Edward Aloysius Murphy Jr. was born on 11 January 1918 in the Panama Canal Zone. He went to West Point, then served in the Second World War as a maintenance officer at bomber bases in Burma, India and China.

He left the Air Force in the early 1950s and spent his career on aircraft safety, including at Douglas Aircraft and Hughes Helicopter. He died in 1990, his name famous for a gloomy meaning he reportedly didn’t much care for.

The idea is older than Murphy

The idea, and very nearly the words, were around long before Murphy. Researchers at the American Dialect Society, including Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, have found it in print decades earlier.

Year	Who	What they wrote
1866	Augustus De Morgan, mathematician	“whatever can happen will happen if we make trials enough”
1877	Alfred Holt, Liverpool shipping engineer	“anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later”
1908	Nevil Maskelyne, stage magician	On a special occasion, “everything that can go wrong will go wrong”

Maskelyne meant performing a trick in public for the first time.

How the name spread

The earliest known printed “Murphy’s law” isn’t from the Air Force. In a 1951 study by the psychologist Anne Roe, an unnamed physicist calls it “Murphy’s law”: “If anything can go wrong it will.”

The physicist was later identified as Howard Percy Robertson, and he reportedly said he heard it from an architect. If he spoke to Roe in early 1949, as his letters suggest, the name may be older than the sled story.

The rocket-sled link first reached print in Lloyd Mallan’s 1955 book Men, Rockets and Space Rats. Then Arthur Bloch’s 1977 bestseller, Murphy’s Law, and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!, put it on office walls everywhere.

Is Murphy’s law Irish?

Short answer: no. Sorry.

The law is named after an American engineer born in the Panama Canal Zone. There’s no reliable record tracing his family to Ireland.

So why does it feel so Irish?

• The name. Murphy is usually ranked Ireland’s most common surname. It comes from Ó Murchadha, usually explained as “sea warrior”. More in my guide to Irish surnames.
• Murphy as Mr Irishman. Green’s Dictionary of Slang records “Murphy” as a stock name for any Irishman from 1812. It’s been slang for a potato since about 1810, too.
• The jokes. Paddy and Murphy are two of the busiest men in Irish jokes. Name a law after a Murphy and you’ve half a joke already.

I often see Murphy’s law in Irish quotes and sayings. That’s down to the name, not the origin. It’s an American law with an Irish surname, and we’re happy to adopt it.

Murphy’s law, Irish edition

• The day you hang out a full load of washing is the day the forecast was wrong.
• The one Sunday you skip Mass, half the parish asks your mother where you were.
• The kettle boils just as the phone rings, and it’s someone who “won’t keep you a minute”.
• Leave one cousin off the wedding list, and it’ll be the one with the biggest mouth.

Sod’s law and Murphy’s other cousins

Sod’s law is what most people in Ireland and Britain actually say. It adds an extra kick: things go wrong at the worst possible moment. Murphy’s law says the toast can fall. Sod’s law says it falls just as the in-laws walk in.

Finagle’s law, often credited to the science-fiction editor John W. Campbell Jr., says much the same.

Parkinson’s law comes from C. Northcote Parkinson’s 1955 essay in The Economist: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Hofstadter’s law, from Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach, says things always take longer than you expect. That holds even after you allow for Hofstadter’s law.

Does toast really land butter-side down?

Someone actually did the physics. In 1995 Robert Matthews of Aston University published “Tumbling toast, Murphy’s Law and the fundamental constants” in the European Journal of Physics.

Toast sliding off a normal table only has time for about half a turn before it hits the floor. Start butter-side up, and you’re scraping the lino.

Matthews even tied table height to the fundamental constants. He won the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for it.

In 2001 Matthews ran a schools experiment, reported in the Daily Telegraph, where children dropped toast thousands of times. It reportedly landed butter-side down more often than not.

So in one narrow case, Murphy was right. Otherwise, we simply remember the day the bus didn’t come and forget the hundred days it did.

So how can I avoid Murphy’s law, Stephen?

That is another great question. Sure, you can plan ahead, double-check things and be more organised. But will it really stop whatever will happen from happening? Who knows!

Funnily enough, planning ahead is exactly what the real Murphy had in mind. Assume the worst, check the wiring, then check it again.

Don’t get overwhelmed by it, either. Murphy’s law is tongue-in-cheek, and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously.

Things can go wrong, but things can go right too! ☘️

Murphy’s law FAQ

What does Murphy’s law mean in simple terms?

If something can go wrong, it eventually will. Engineers use it as a reminder to plan for every failure.

Who was Murphy in Murphy’s law?

Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr. (1918 to 1990), a US Air Force engineer. His sensors were reportedly wired backwards during rocket-sled tests at what is now Edwards Air Force Base in 1949.

Is Murphy’s law Irish?

No. It’s named after an American engineer, and the idea appears in English print from the 1860s. The Irish link is just the surname.

What is the difference between Murphy’s law and Sod’s law?

Murphy’s law says what can go wrong will go wrong. Sod’s law, the usual name in Ireland and Britain, adds that it will happen at the worst possible moment.

Is Murphy’s law scientifically true?

Not as a general rule, though Robert Matthews’ 1995 study showed falling toast does tend to land butter-side down.

What is the opposite of Murphy’s law?

Yhprum’s law, which is Murphy spelt backwards and is sometimes credited to the economist Richard Zeckhauser. Anything that can go right will go right.

More Irish sayings and jokes

• Irish Sayings and What They Mean
• Irish Proverbs
• Irish Slang Words
• Irish Jokes
• Funny Irish Jokes
• Irish Surnames and Their Meanings

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Did you come here by choice, or did Murphy’s law bring you here?

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