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Index
The Law's of Thermodynamics
- You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat.
- What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth.
- You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing.
David Ellis fourth Law of Thermodynamics
If the probability of success is not almost one, it is damn near zero.
Rule of Accuracy
When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Three rules for sounding like an expert
- Oversimplify your explanations to the point of uselessness.
- Always point out second-order effects, but never point out when they can be ignored.
- Come up with three rules of your own.
Law of Selective Gravity
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
Anthony's Law of Force
Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
Cheop's Law
Nothing ever gets build on schedule or within budget.
Featherkile's Rule
Whatever you did, that's what you planned.
Finagle's Laws
- To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.
- Always keep a record of data -- it indicates you've been working.
- In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.
- Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
- Always draw your curves, then plot your readings.
- Don't believe in miracles - rely on them.
- The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum.
- If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
- No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to fake it.
- No matter what the result, someone is always eager to misinterpret it.
- No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to his pet theory.
Corollaries to Finagle's Third Law
- Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
- The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
Government's Law
There is an exception to all laws.
Gumperson's Law
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability.
Hofstadter's Law
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
Horner's Five Thumb Postulate
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
Lackland's Laws
- Never be first.
- Never be last.
- Never volunteer for anything.
Maryann's Law
You can always find what you're not looking for.
May's Law
The quality of correlation is inversly proportional to the density of control.
(The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.)
Naeser's Law
You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof.
Rudin's Law
- If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time.
- In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course.
Sattinger's Law
It works better if you plug it in.
Scott's Laws
- No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
- When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place.
Corollary to Scott's Law
After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.
Stockmayer's Theorem
If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn near impossible.
Unnamed Law
If it happens, it must be possible.
Van Roy's Law
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
Velilind's Laws of Experimentation
- If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
- If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.
Westheimer's Rule
To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you
think it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of measure
to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour
task.
- If anything can go wrong, it will.
- If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong.
- If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
- If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
- Mother nature is a bitch.
Addition to Murphy's Laws
In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Laws
Murphy was an optimist.
Silverman's Law
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Atwoods Corollary
No books are lost by lending except those you particularly wanted to keep.
Harper's Magazine Law
You never find the article until you replace it.
Johnson's Third Law
If you miss one issue of any magazine, it will be the issue that contains the article, story or installment you were most anxious to read.
Corollary to Johnson's Third Law
All of your friends either missed it, lost it or threw it out.
Malek's Law
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
The Laws of Computer Programming
- Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
- Any given program costs more and takes longer each time it is run.
- If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
- If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
- Any given program will expand to fill all the available memory.
- The value of a program is inversely proportional to the weight of its output.
- Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
Arnold's Laws of Documentation
- If it should exist, it doesn't.
- If it does exist, it's out of date.
- Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.
Brooke's Law
Adding manpower to a late software makes it later.
Eagleson's Law
Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more
months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is
an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
Gilb's Laws of Unreliability
- Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
- Any system that depends upon human reliability is unreliable.
- Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
- Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.
Golub's Laws of Computerdom
- Fuzzy project objectives are used to avoid embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
- A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.
- The effort required to correct course increases geometrically with time.
- Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology
There's always one more bug.
Pierce's Law
In any computer system, the machine will always misinterpret, misconstrue, misprint, or not evaluate any math or subroutines or fail to print any output on at least the first run through.
Corollary to Pierce's Law
When a compiler accepts a program without error on the first run, the program will not yield the desired output.
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