
" Laws " that never made it into your science texts
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- Murphys' Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.
- O'Tooles' commentary of Murphys' Law: Murphy was an optimist.
- The unspeakable Law:
- As soon as you mention something...
- ...if it's good, it goes away.
- ...if it's bad, it happens.
- Nonreciprocal Laws of expectations:
- Negative expectations yield negative results.
- Positive expectations yield negative results.
- Howes' Law: Every man has a scheme that will not work.
- Zymurgys' first law of evolving system dynamics: Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
- Etorres' observation: The other line moves faster.
- Skinners' constant (Flannigans' finangaling factor): The quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten in the first place.
- Law of selective gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
- 9A. Jennings' corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
- Borens' law: When in doubt, mumble.
- The golden rule of arts and sciences: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
- Segals' law: A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
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