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.".^[1] 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 (webcomic).
...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 RoboCop.

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.

↑ The actual Murphy's Law is something different, although most people refer to it in this form, which is why we have Finagle's Law

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[1] The actual Murphy's Law is something different, although most people refer to it in this form, which is why we have Finagle's Law