Murphy's Technology Laws
The ultimate collection of 126 laws regarding Murphy's Technology Laws. If it can go wrong, it will, and usually at the worst time.
Laws in this category
Van Loon's law: Mechanical development is inversely related to the availability of slave labor.
Cunningham's law: The best way to get a correct answer on the Internet is to post a wrong one
The repairman will have never seen a model quite like yours before.
- Christa
- Bhaskar Tatwawadi
Whenever you fix a bug, two more appear in its place
- probe
Kranzberg's Third Law of Technology: Technology comes in packages, big and small.
Kranzberg's Second Law of Technology: Invention is the mother of necessity.
Kranzberg's First Law of Technology: Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.
Hartley's law: Quantity of information is proportional to log of signal variety.
Gall's law: Complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked.
Metcalfe's law: network value grows with the square of the number of users.
Cooper's law: The number of simultaneous wireless conversations doubles every 30 months.
Claasen's logarithmic law of usefulness: Usefulness is proportional to the logarithm of technology
Explore nearby
- Technology hub A curated technology-focused Murphy hub.
- Technology examples Real situations where tech goes sideways.
- Sod's Law Calculator Model task risk with urgency and complexity.
More laws in this category
- Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes...
- The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm
- A computer's attention span is only as long as its electrical cord
- An expert knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing
- Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe, and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet...
- Always draw your curves, then plot your reading
- Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget
- All's well that ends well
- A meeting is when minutes are saved and hours are lost
- The first myth of management is that it exists
- A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection
- New systems create new problems
- We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clark
- A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make
- Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an honest day's work
- Some people manage the book, even though they don't know who wrote it or what book it is
- The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible...
- To spot the expert, choose the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most
- After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done
- Any circuit design must contain at least one obsolete part, two unobtainable parts, and three parts still...
- If you get the incorrect answer mathematically, multiply by the page number
- Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable
- Give all orders verbally. Never write anything that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File."
- Under the most rigorously controlled pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the...
- If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious
- The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds the competition already has the order
- In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be totaled correctly after 4
- Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches
- All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door
- The only perfect science is hindsight
- Work smarter and not harder, and be careful of your spelling
- If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist
- If an experiment works, something has gone wrong
- When all else fails, read the instructions
- If several things could go wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one that goes wrong...
- Everything that goes up must come down
- Any simple theory will be formulated in the most complicated way
- Build a system that even a fool can use. Only a fool will want to use it
- The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the management level
- A difficult task will be halted near completion by one tiny, previously insignificant detail
- There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over
- The remaining work to finish to reach your goal increases as the deadline approaches
- If there is ever the possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage...
- If something breaks and stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you no longer need it, are...
- Each profession talks to itself in its language. There is no Rosetta Stone
- The more urgent the need for a decision, the less apparent the identity of the decision maker
- It is never wise to let a piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry
- Don't fix something that ain't broke, 'cause you'll break it and still can't fix it
- You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track
- Dobie's Dogma
- A screw will never fit a nut
- Standard parts - aren't
- When working on a motor vehicle engine, any tool dropped will land directly under the engine's center
- Interchangeable tapes - won't
- Never trust modern technology. Trust it only when it is old technology
- The bolt in the most awkward place will always be the one with the tightest thread. The most ominous...
- The 2nd worst thing the tech can say is "Oops!"
- Any example of hardware/software can be made foolproof. It cannot, however, be made damn-fool-proof
- The Rosemblat Graphic Insult Theory
- Bahaman's Law
- In today's fast-moving tech environment, it is a requirement that we forget more than we learn
- It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make it simple
- Measurements will be quoted in the least practical unit. Velocity, for example, will be measured in...
- In electronics repair, the part with the highest failure rate will always be located in the least...
- Multi-million pound technology is worthless in the hands of morons
- The rule of Protection
- The Imhoff Law
- High-tech man-year = 730 people trying to finish a project before lunch
- An expert will always state the obvious
- On a cruise ship, the one most important part you don't have in stock always breaks on a Friday evening...
- The chance a copy machine will break down is proportional to the importance of the material that needs to...
- The maintenance department neglects customers' complaints until it starts installing in customers' new...
- Murphy's Law on HVAC systems
- All the engineers can do is shiver or sweat and moan about it, and say how they would fix it if the...
- The probability of any machine breaking increases with the importance of the expected visit
- If it works in theory, it won't work in practice
- Research Law
- Somers' Law of Repair
- Any tool dropped will fall where it can cause the most damage
- Any wire cut to length will be too short
- Equivalent replacement parts aren't
- When you finally update to a new technology, everyone stops supporting it
- Interchangeable parts aren't
- The proposed size of any project is inversely proportional to its eventual size
- The less intelligent the idea and the person stating it, the more likely it will be funded
- A man with one watch is certain about time, but a man with two watches isn't
- The more knowledge you gain, the less certain you are
- You're not an expert if you think you understand science, computers, or women
- Technicians are the only ones who don't trust technology
- All impossible failures will happen at the test site
- The more you want to contact someone over an instant messenger, the more inversely proportional it is to...
- The more important your email is, the worse your email client will screw it up
- The degree to which a device will function is directly proportional to the number of times it has been...
- A device with an indestructible core user serviceable component is deemed unsafe until it's replaced by an...
- Assaf's Laws of Replacement Parts
- All mechanical and electrical equipment will catastrophically fail after the guarantee has expired unless...
- The Harvard Principle
- First Law of Linear Equations
- The disappearance of a nagging error in a system is explicable only in terms of the insignificant...
- Law of Repairmen