The generalized or ‘folk’ version of
Murphy's Law, fully named “Finagle's Law of Dynamic
Negatives” and usually rendered “Anything that can go wrong,
will”. May have been first published by Francis P. Chisholm in his
1963 essay The Chisholm Effect, later reprinted in
the classic anthology A Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening
Gown: And Other Essays For A Scientific Eye (Robert Baker ed,
Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-852608-7).
The label ‘Finagle's Law’ was popularized by SF author
Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid
miners; this ‘Belter’ culture professed a religion and/or
running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad
prophet Murphy. Some technical and scientific cultures (e.g.,
paleontologists) know it under the name Sod's
Law; this usage may be more common in Great Britain. One
variant favored among hackers is “The perversity of the Universe
tends towards a maximum”; Niven specifically referred to this as
O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law. See also
Hanlon's Razor.
