La Legge di Murphy è un insieme di detti popolari nella cultura occidentale, a carattere ironico e caricaturale. Si possono idealmente riassumere nel primo assioma, che è in realtà la legge di Murphy vera e propria, che ha dato il titolo a tutto il pensieromurphologico:
"If something can go wrong, will. "
[...]
Murphy uttered his historic words:
" if there are two or more ways to make a thing, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way. "
An example of the domestic reality is:
" The probability that a slice of buttered bread falls butter on the side down on a new carpet is proportional to the value of that carpet. "The best thing
:
A reformulation in terms of its pseudo-buttered cat paradox is:
" If it is true that a slice of bread always falls buttered side and a cat always falls on his feet, dropping a cat with a slice of bread on his back either of the first ever to fall and you will have perpetual motion.
