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.