Have you ever experienced something like not being able to bring your umbrella and then it rained like there was no tomorrow? Or maybe you could have experienced something like you’re about to print something that is due the next day and then you suddenly ran out of ink or a paper was jammed into the printer. Another classic example would be you have a paper due the next day and then you accidentally turned off the computer without saving your work. I guess we’ve had a handful of experiences like these one and such can be related to Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s law states that “Things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance.” I’ve learned this from one of the Lasallian brothers when I was in DLSU last week.

And if you think that it’s some sort of a saying or so, it’s not. The mathematical equation for Murphy’s law is:

((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))
where:
the following are given a score between one and nine

• U = urgency
• C = complexity
• I = importance
• S = skill
• F = frequency

set at 0.7 by the experts after their poll

• A = aggravation

And as a bonus, here are my top ten experiences proving Murphy’s Law.

1. I forgot my umbrella (or wore a khaki slacks) on the day that’s going to rain.
2. There are no available computers in the PC lab when I was about to start on my project that is to be submitted on the next hour. (And this is because I only learned about it the same day)
3. My diskette was corrupted with some valuable files for submission.
4. I ran out of ink when I was printing my scanned transcript of records.
5. When I was running late, there is a long queue in the Skyway Toll Plaza or I’m the first passenger in the shuttle and it took quite a time to fill the van.
6. I ran out of coins when I needed them the most.
7. The application automatically closed (a subtle way of saying that it crashed down) in the middle of a technical presentation.
8. Accidentally deleting files from a flash drive and realizing later on that I was not able to copy it to my local hard drive.
9. I lost signal at the time when I was expecting a call or was about to send an important message.
10. Even if I list the stuff to be packed, I will almost always forget to bring one of the items in my list.

Got any experiences like these? Hehehe!