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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Finagle's Law</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="filter.html" title="filter"/><link rel="next" href="fine.html" title="fine"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Finagle's Law</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="filter.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fine.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Finagles-Law"/><dt xmlns="" id="Finagles-Law"><b>Finagle's Law</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> The generalized or ‘folk’ version of
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<a href="../M/Murphys-Law.html"><i class="glossterm">Murphy's Law</i></a>, fully named “<span class="quote">Finagle's Law of Dynamic
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Negatives</span>” and usually rendered “<span class="quote">Anything that can go wrong,
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will</span>”. May have been first published by Francis P. Chisholm in his
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1963 essay <i class="citetitle">The Chisholm Effect</i>, later reprinted in
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the classic anthology <i class="citetitle">A Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening
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Gown: And Other Essays For A Scientific Eye</i> (Robert Baker ed,
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Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-852608-7).</p><p>The label ‘Finagle's Law’ was popularized by SF author
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Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid
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miners; this ‘Belter’ culture professed a religion and/or
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running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad
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prophet Murphy. Some technical and scientific cultures (e.g.,
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paleontologists) know it under the name <span class="firstterm">Sod's
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Law</span>; this usage may be more common in Great Britain. One
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variant favored among hackers is “<span class="quote">The perversity of the Universe
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tends towards a maximum</span>”; Niven specifically referred to this as
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O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law. See also
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<a href="../H/Hanlons-Razor.html"><i class="glossterm">Hanlon's Razor</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="filter.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fine.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">filter </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> fine</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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