What is Murphy's Law?

Murphy's Law is a psychological effect proposed by Edward A. Murphy, also known as Murphy's Law and Murphy's Theorem.

The original sentence of Murphy's Law is: If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of the choices will lead to disaster, then someone will make this choice. . The bottom line is: if there is a chance that things will go bad, no matter how small the possibility, it will happen.

Extended information:

1. Conditions of occurrence

In mathematical statistics, there is an important statistical rule: Suppose an unexpected event occurs in an experiment (activity) The probability of occurrence is p (pgt; 0), then the probability of at least one occurrence in n experiments (activities) is P=1-(1-p)^n. It can be seen that no matter how small the probability p is (that is, a small probability event), when n becomes larger and larger, P becomes closer and closer to 1.

This conclusion was applied to safety management by Edward Murphy. He pointed out: When doing anything, if there is an objectively wrong approach, or there is a possibility of some kind of accident. , no matter how small the possibility is, when doing this thing repeatedly, an accident will always happen at some point. In other words, as long as the possibility of an accident exists, no matter how small the possibility is, the accident will happen sooner or later.

2. Specific content

1. Nothing is as simple as it seems on the surface.

2. Everything will take longer than you expect.

3. Things that can go wrong will always go wrong.

4. If you are worried about something happening, it is more likely to happen.

The basic content of "Murphy's Law" is that "anything that can go wrong has a high probability of going wrong." It means that as long as any event has a probability greater than zero, it cannot be assumed that it will not go wrong. will happen.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Murphy’s Law