These laws I have collected over the years.
- Anderson's Law:
- Everything takes longer and costs more.
- Captain Penny's Law:
- You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool mom.
- Civilization Law #1:
- Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations one can do without thinking about them.
- Mr. Cole's Axiom:
- The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
- Cole's Law:
- Thinly sliced cabbage.
- Evan's Law:
- If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then you just don't understand the problem.
- Felson's Law:
- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; To steal from many is
research.
- Finagle's Law:
- The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum.
- Frouds Law:
- A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect the fuse
by blowing first.
- Fullers Law of Cosmic Irreversibility (R. Buckminster Fuller):
- 1 Pot T == 1 Pot P, 1 Pot P != 1 Pot T
- Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
- Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.
- Harrison's Postulate:
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
- Jenning's Work Law:
- The harder one works at a problem, the harder the problem gets.
- Ketterling's Law:
- Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.
- Law of Probability Dispersal:
- Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
- Merskey's Laws of Medicine:
- Do a silly test and you get a silly answer.
- In a hospital, more patients die in bed than out of bed. So get
your patient out of bed!
- Any drug can do anything.
- Mike's Law (Mike Dennison):
- For a lumber company employing two men and a cut-off saw, the marginal product of labor for any number of additional workers equals zero until the acquisition of another cut-off saw. Let's not even consider a chainsaw. [You could always schedule the saw, though - ed.]
- Parkinson's Law:
- Work expands to fill the time allotted it.
- Parkinson's Law (Karl's version):
- Work expands to exceed the time alloted it.
- Paul's Law:
- You can't fall off the floor.
- Pohl's Law:
- Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
- Sturgeon's Law:
- Ninety percent of everything is crud.
- The Swartzberg Test:
- The validity of a science is its ability to predict.
- Fourth Law of Thermodymanics (David Ellis):
- If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero.
- Thoreau's Law:
- If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing
you good, you should run for your life.
- Toffler's Law:
- The future arrives too soon and in the wrong order.
- Vique's Law:
- A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
- Zimmerman's Law of Complaints:
- Nobody notices when things go right.
I got these from Madelaine.
- New Criteria to assess R&D based on Finagle's Rules of Scientific Research:
- Do not believe in miracles - rely on them,
- Experiments must be reproducible - they should fail the same way,
- Always verify your witchcraft,
- First draw your curves - then plot your points,
- A record of data is useful - it indicates that you have been working,
- To study a subject best - understand it thoroughly before you start,
- In case of doubt - make it sound convincing, and
- Experience is directly proportional to the equipment ruined.
The Finagle Factor is characterized by changing the Universe to fit the
equation.
