Murphy's Law Essay Example

Murphy’s Law was named after Edward A. Murphy, who was an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981. This project was designed to see the sudden deceleration a person can endure during a crash. After finding that a transducer was wired wrong, which was not handled facetiously. Murphy abused a technician and said, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it." The manager had qualms about the project and kept a list of rules and laws. One law added was called Murphy's Law, which was a regular old law that was simplified and renamed. Later, Air Force doctor John Paul Stapp took a ride on the deceleration track and was able to withstand up to 40 Gs. He was effusive with the experience and stated that they had a great safety record due to Murphy's Law. Aerospace manufacturers picked up the law and widely used it during the next few months. Soon, the law was being used in newspapers and magazines. 

A connection between the story of Murphy’s Law and today is when something planned does not go the right way. The Air Force project had a flaw and they needed to fix the problem right away. Edward A. Murphy wanted to make sure that safety was secured for all people. He should have taken the initiative to double-check the project instead of blaming failure on others. This is just like when you need to fix a pencil sharpener that doesn’t sharpen pencils. You should fix the problem so that everyone should be able to use it.

“I blamed Murphy's Law when the homework was never collected but, the day I forgot it at home, it was collected.”

The theme of Murphy’s Law is that you should expect the worst so you are prepared. If you can expect things to go wrong then you should prepare a solution to a problem. You will know what to do and resolve the issue faster than not having an idea of what to do. In the story, the technicians should expect a wire to be wrong and check to make sure the project works. If you expect a problem then you have better chances of fixing it before a disaster occurs. You should not depend on everyone to do things for you. If you depend on others all the time, things will often not get done. It is better to take things into your own hands. The more work you do yourself, the more satisfied you will feel in success. You should make sure to double-check and redo things that you complete. If you double-check then there is no way something can be overlooked and go uncorrected. You should carefully look over things you have done and redo and seen fit. In the story, Edward Murphy needed to double-check a technician’s work to make sure the machine worked properly without any flaws.