A Convivial Aviation Discussion Forum for Aviators, Aviatrices and for those who think Flying Machines are Magic.
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Colonel J P StappThe universe has been finding ways to mess with people long before Edward A. Murphy uttered his famed statement in the aftermath of Dr. John Paul Stapp strapping himself onto a rocket powered sled. One of the earliest instances of this “law” being stated explicitly happened in 1877 where Alfred Holt, in an address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, said, “It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later…”
By 1908, it had become a well-loved maxim among magicians as well, as explained by Nevil Maskelyne in The Magic Circular: “It is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion . . . everything that can go wrong will go wrong…”
This was reiterated by Adam Hull Shirk in The Sphinx in 1928, “It is an established fact that in nine cases out of ten whatever can go wrong in a magical performance will do so.”
Following the end of hostilities, in 1947 Murphy attended the United States Air Force Institute of Technology, becoming R&D Officer at the Wright Air Development Center of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It was while here that he became involved in the high-speed rocket sled experiments (USAF project MX981, 1949) which led to the coining of Murphy's law. Murphy himself was reportedly unhappy with the commonplace interpretation of his law, which is seen as capturing the essential "cussedness" of inanimate objects. Murphy regarded the law as crystallizing a key principle of defensive design, in which one should always assume worst-case scenarios. Murphy was said by his son to have regarded the many jocular versions of the law as "ridiculous, trivial and erroneous".
Or if you manage to get the last screw out, it will fall into the most inaccessible crevice or nook and cranny!Pontius Navigator wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 1:40 pmTGG, that article mentions Sod's Law, my favourite is screw fasteners. No matter how many screws that must be removed to gain access, it will be the last screw that cannot be removed in the time available or with the tools at hand. All the other screws must be refastened until that stuck screw can be removed.
If you have a socket set with A/F, BA, and metric up to size 10, the required socket will be 11.
If you do have the right size, the bolt will protrude sufficiently far that the socket cannot engage the nut.
