Origin or What is Thought to be The Origin

Although the message of Murphy's Law has been claimed to have been around for a lot longer, the most accepted explanation of the origin of this phrase was coined in 1949 at the Edwards Air Force Auxiliary North Base in Edwards, Californina, United States.

It was coined after Capain Edward A. Murphy, who was an engineer working on Air Force Project MX981. The goal of this project was intended to discover how much sudden deceleration a person, meeting certain criteria, can withstand in a possible crash scenario.

During the research and development of the equipment to test for such goals and Captain Edward A. Murphy discovered that a transducer was wired incorrectly, which would have tainted the results had it not been discovered, cursed the technician responsible and said, If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it.

According to the obligations of such military projects it was the duty of a designated person to keep a 'List of Laws". For this project is became the responsibility of the Contractor's Project Manager and he noted this phrase, copied it into the List of Laws under the designation of Murphy's Law. The identity of this Contractor's Project Manager is unknown. In reality, what the Contractor's Project Manager did was take an old, existing law, or rule of thumb, that had been around for years in a more basic form and give it a name.

Upon completion of the test equipment Doctor John Paul Stapp of the Air Force rode a sled on the deceleration track to a stop, pulling 40 Gs. This designation is defined as a unit of force that is equal to the force exerted by gravity on a body at rest and is used to indicate the force to which a body is subjected when undergoing acceleration. In this experiment the object was the action of deceleration. Following the experiment Doctor John Paul Stapp of the Air Force gave a press conference, at which he stated that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it.

Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their advertisements, seminars, and instruction classes during the next few months, and soon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles. In essence, Murphy's Law was born.

Bridge Players from around the world have also allowed a certain humor to invade the game of bridge. They have also come to several conclusions, which, if truth be told, do not always hold water, stand up in court, be representative for all bridge players, but still retain a certain grain of truth and possess the property of being in accordance with fact and/or reality, and which are readily accepted by those bridge players, who may relate.

Following are bridge-related Murphy's Laws and other observable and unexplained occurrences pertaining to the game of bridge, and we hope that the visitor enjoys them. BridgeGuys.com takes absolutely no responsibility for the validity, truthfulness, or correctness of any contributions made to this site and presented here on this web page for the enjoyment of all visitors.

Brian Zietman - Murphy's Laws
1.	Partner always preempts in your singleton or void.
2.	If you have to guess a finesse, you guess wrong.
3.	If you have a choice between playing for the drop or finessing, you will make the wrong decision.
4.	If you run the Queen from hand to the ace and let it ride, the King will be a singleton on your right.
5,	If you go up with the Ace, the King will be on your left.
6.	If you double for penalty, partner thinks it is for takeout.
7.	If you double for takeout, partner thinks it is for penalty.
8.	You always count your cards and there are always 13 cards ... except the time when you don't count and then you have 12 or 14.
9.	When opponents revoke it makes no difference, because you win all the tricks anyway, but when your side revokes, you lose 2 tricks.
10.	The director is always next to you when your mobile phone rings, but when you need him he is never there.

Brian Zietman - When you can sense danger at the bridge table.
1.	Your opponents come to your table and the gentleman is congratulating his wife on an excellently executed Compound Squeeze.
2.	Your opponents announce that they play a simple system: Multi, Ghestem, Puppet, Cappelletti Vul and DONT N/V, Michaels, and upside down signals.
3.	Your opponents burst out laughing when you claim.
4.	Your opponents arrive at the table and say to one another – OK ..at this table all doubles are for penalty.
5,	Your opponent bids before you have sorted your cards out.
6.	Both your opponents are under 14 years old.
7.	One of your opponents has in his hand the Laws of Bridge and Adventures in Card Play by Kelsey and Ottlik.
8.	You doubled a part score and dummy ruffs your opening lead of an Ace.
9.	Your partner is declarer and after 3 tricks asks: What contract are we playing?
10.	Partner passes 1 No Trump after you redoubled for SOS or partner passes your cue bid.

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