* Trust everybody ... then cut the cards.

* Two wrongs are only the beginning.

* If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

* Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.

* The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users don't really know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.

* Exceptions always outnumber rules.

* To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

* No one is listening until you make a mistake.

* He who hesitates is probably right.

* One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.

* A clean tie attracts the soup of the day.

* The hardness of the butter is in direct proportion to the softness of the bread.

* The bag that breaks is the one with the eggs.

* When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks take two weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear overnight.

* The book you spent $20.95 for today will come out in paperback tomorrow.

* Never ask the barber if you need a haircut or a salesman if his is a good price.

* If it says "one size fits all," it doesn't fit anyone.

* You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

* Love letters, business contracts and money due you always arrive three weeks late, whereas junk mail arrives the day it was sent.

* When you drop change at a vending machine, the pennies will fall nearby, while all other coins will roll out of sight.

* The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

* Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

* Life can be only understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

* Interchangeable parts won't.

* No matter which way you go, it's uphill and against the wind.

* If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.

* The hidden flaw never remains hidden.

* As soon as the stewardess serves the coffee, the airline encounters turbulence.

* For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

* People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made.

* When reviewing your notes for a test, the most important ones will be illegible.

* The least experienced fisherman always catches the biggest fish.

* Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with.

* The telephone will ring when you are outside the door, fumbling for your keys.



Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.

Corollary:
Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
Push something hard enough and it will fall over.

First Law of Bicycling:
No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.

First Law of Socio-Genetics:
Celibacy is not hereditary.

First Rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other.

Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.

Corollary:
If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.

Finagle's fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are.

Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes.

Ducharm's Axiom:
If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

Ehrman's Commentary:
1. Things will get worse before they get better.
2. Who said things would get better?

Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.

DeVries's Dilemma:
If you hit two keys on the computer keyboard, the one you don't want hits the paper.

Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.

Conway's Law:
In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on.

This person must be fired.

Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.

Churchill's Commentary on Man:
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Colvard's Logical Premises:
All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.

Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.

Captain Penny's Law:
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.

Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"

Boren's Laws:
(1) When in charge, ponder.
(2) When in trouble, delegate.
(3) When in doubt, mumble.

Boling's postulate:
If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.

Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.

A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason.

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
-- Herbert Hoover

Anthony's Law of Force:
Don't force it; get a larger hammer.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.

Corollary:
On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.

Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up.

Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.




Murphy's Laws and Mathematics

Murphy's law and its corollaries are familiar to everyone who studies mathematics.



Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.

Corollary 1: At the worst possible time

Corollary 2: Causing the most damage


Here are some ways in which Murphy's law applies to mathematics:

1. The harder you study, the farther behind you get.

2. Every problem is harder than it looks and takes longer than you expected.

3. When you solve a problem, it always helps to know the answer.

4. Any expression can be made equal to any other expression if you juggle it enough.

5. Knowing mathematics and teaching mathematics are not equivalent.

6. Teaching ability is inversely proportional to the number of papers published.

7. Proofs don't convince anybody of anything.

8. An ounce of example is worth a pound of theory.

9. What is "obvious" to everyone else won't be "obvious" to you.

10. Notes you understood perfectly in class transform themselves into hieroglyphics at home.

11. Textbooks are written for those who already know the subject.

12. Any simple idea will be expressed in incomprehensible terms.

13. The answers you need aren't in the back of the book.

14. No matter how much you study for exams, it will never be enough.

15. The problems you can work are never put on the exam.

16. The problems you are certain won't be on the test will be.

17. The answer to the problem you couldn't work on the exam will become obvious after you hand in your paper.




Murphy's Laws of Computing



1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.

2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete.

3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.

4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.

5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.

6. To err is human . . . to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.

7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.

8. If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.

9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

10. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.

11. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want to do.