Murphy's Law

"The first experiment already illustrates a truth of the theory, well confirmed by practice, what-ever can happen will happen if we make trials enough."

- Augustus de Morgan, 1866

Murphy's Law is the most commonly used term for the infamously pessimistic maxim, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." . However, on this wiki, it references quite a few things, so we've made this page to help people figure out which one they really want.

If you want...
 * ...the trope as applied to fiction, it's under Finagle's Law.
 * ...the webcomic, it's under Murphy's Law.
 * ...the trope about a bed that traps people, it's Murphy's Bed.
 * ...the UK drama series with James Nesbitt... you'll have to make a page for it.
 * ...the law as laid down by Alex Murphy, that's Robo Cop.

The actual Murphy's Law is more nearly "If parts can be assembled a right way and a wrong way, they will be assembled the wrong way." Study, for instance, the loss of several F-111 (TFX) aircraft during the Vietnam War due to the backwards insertion of a graphite pin in the rudder assembly.