The Laws of the Universe      

We are living is a scientific world and there are 'laws' governing everything.  My favourite 'law' is that you do not have to worry if you can  shift the blame on to someone else.  Here are a few of the other, better known, laws.  Alfred E Neuman of Mad Magazine fame had the right approach when he said "What me worry?"

Finagle's Law   

         " Anything that can go wrong, will  ".   

The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven.  Even before this, it was called Sod's Law, which states that any bad thing that can happen to some poor sod, will.     

Also called    Murphy's Law.   Of these three, Murphy's Law is by far the more commonly used. The notion that 'if anything can go wrong, it will' is the simplest version of a notion that has been expressed in numerous ways. Many of these pre-date 'Murphy':      

Hanlon's Law          

" Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity  ".    

Sturgeon's Law         

" Ninety percent of everything is crap  ".   

This law is derived  from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud." Oddly, when Sturgeon's Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to`crap'.  

Murphy's Original Law         

If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.   

Murphy's First Corollary   

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse     .    

Murphy's Second Corollary   

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.   

Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law   

Everything goes wrong all at once.   

Murphy's Constant   

Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.   

The Murphy Philosophy   

Smile... tomorrow will be worse.   

Who was Murphy?   

In reality, Murphy is commonly thought to be Captain Edward A. Murphy, an American aerospace engineer, who performed studies on deceleration for the U.S. Air Force in 1949. During the experiments, in which he had a less than cordial relationship with other members of the research team, he noted that if things could be done wrongly, they would be. In subsequent interviews, various team members have stated that they referred to the notion as 'Murphy's Law'. The expression wasn't put into print by them at the time though and the earliest citation of it is in Anne Roe's book The Making of a Scientist, 1952:    

Other sources have questioned that the Murphy in the name was an actual person. In his memoire Into Orbit,1962, John Glenn states that:   

"We blamed human errors like this on what aviation engineers call 'Murphy's Law'. 'Murphy' was a fictitious character who appeared in a series of educational cartoons put out by the U.S. Navy... Murphy was a careless, all-thumbs mechanic who was prone to make such mistakes as installing a propeller backwards."   

Other Laws sometimes attributed to Murphy   

o        How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.     

o        When you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.     

o        To err is human. To blame it on someone else is even more human.     

o        Whoever had the last laugh, probably didn’t get the joke.     

o        If anything is used to its full potential, it will break.     

o        If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less.     

o        Every action has an equal and opposite criticism.     

o        When a body is immersed in water… the telephone rings!      

      This last law probably pre-dates cell phones.  I have been told that the height of luxury is taking a call whilst in a hot bubble bath!