you invite your friends over to watch an NBA basketball playoff game on TV
there are plenty of sodas in the refrigerator the popcorn is popping
and you are all set to watch the big game
you turn on the said and all you get is a fuzzy image on the screen is this plain bad luck or is it murphy's law at work
murphy's law states if anything can go wrong
it will similar situations occur all the time when you're in a hurry to open the door and you try several key is on the
keyring the last one you try is usually the one that works
when you get into a line at the supermarket you find you've chosen the slowest one and it just doesn't move bad luck
or coincidence according to British physicist robert matthews it's neither one nor the other he explains that are selective
1:05memory
1:06tends to remember the bad episodes more readily than the things that usually
1:10work out
1:11and the law of probability is more against us
1:15then in our favor for example in the supermarket with five cashiers
1:21the chances of getting a fast lane are 20 percent
1:24and eighty percent for a slow lane
1:28Matthews became a popular scientist
1:31when he proved that a piece of toast doesn't necessarily fall on the floor
1:36on the buttered side BBC television gathered 300 people
1:41to throw pieces a buttered toast up in the air
1:44and observe on which side they fell half
1:48fell on the buttered side and half didn't now here's a tricky question for
1:53doctor Matthews
1:54it's a known fact that cats always fall on their forelegs
1:59what happens if you tie a piece a buttered toast on a cat's back
2:03and dropped them from a balcony will the cat land on all fours
2:08or will the toast land on the buttered side
2:11I E sincerely hope the BBC doesn't try this experiment
2:15just remember that you cannot blame murphy's law for
2:19everything that goes wrong if the hot water runs out while you're having a
2:24shower
2:24it's probably because the burner needs to be fixed
2:28if your car breaks down on the way to a job interview
2:32it's probably because you didn't have the vehicle serviced
2:36or repaired murphy's law
2:41Captain Edward murphy was an engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in the US
2:46in 1949 he was working on the project
2:50a machine that measured the heartbeat and breathing of pilots
2:54but something was malfunctioning in the equipment due to human error
2:58Murphy blamed the lab technician and said
3:02if there is any way to do it wrong he will
3:05one small failure can bring a whole project crashing down
3:10in practice it was a good principle love safety engineering
3:14and it became popular in all areas to explain the failures
3:19up every day things