Morning Devotional

August 9, 2003

“Murphy's Law”  

by Don Emmitte

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Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Let the congregation of Israel repeat: "His faithful love endures forever." Let Aaron's descendants, the priests, repeat: "His faithful love endures forever." Let all who fear the LORD repeat: "His faithful love endures forever." In my distress I prayed to the LORD, and the LORD answered me and rescued me. The LORD is for me, so I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? Yes, the LORD is for me; he will help me. I will look in triumph at those who hate me. (Psalm 118:1-7 NLT). 

Murphy’s Law has become a standard recitation for many people as they face their lives. The more I thought about that, the more I began to wonder who Murphy was? So, here’s some research: 

Edward A. Murphy, Jr., born in 1917, was a rocket-sled engineer, testing human acceleration tolerances for the United States Air Force in 1949. He experimented with a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject's body. There were exactly two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount. Ironically, somebody managed to install all 16 the wrong way around. Thus, Murphy made this statement: "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." A few days later, one of his test subjects, Major John P. Stapp, quoted Murphy's ominous statement to the press. Later, in 1958 it landed in Webster's Dictionary, but misquoted: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." or "Anything that can go wrong, will."

Ironically, although that phrase became famous as Murphy's Law, it really should be attributed to "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives." Finagle's Law was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories he wrote depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.

Whether you believe in Murphy's Law or not, many laugh or take serious this pessimistic view that if things can go wrong, they will go wrong. Ill-fated glitches, doomed chaos, hapless misadventure have either been avoided via serendipity or been judged because of Murphy's Law. And it doesn't take much of a Murphy to postulate and hypothesize that in real life, taking reckless ventures and harebrained gambles will not pay off because something will probably go wrong.