WEBVTT - How Murphy's Law Works, the Redux 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.400 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.840 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.040 who is with me as always but hasn't been with 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.280 me as always. Mean, there was a dark, dark time 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.160 in my life, Chuck. I call it the pre Chuck era. 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.880 You're two kind. And there were, um several many podcasts 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.600 that I released with other people. Um, I don't feel 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:44.320 good about it, okay, but there it's out there. There's 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.639 one that always stuck out to me that I was like, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.320 there's so much more information. You remember, like back in 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:50.840 the day, we used to try to hit these things 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.200 at like five minutes. Yeah, to say this is evolved 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.000 is an understatement, right. Um. So there was one that 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.560 I was like, five minutes is not an enough for this, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:06.480 Let's do something like thirty seven minutes instead. And um 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.440 it was Murphy's Law. So I really this article a 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.360 long time ago. It was like how Murphy's Law works. 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.840 Like I was raised on these unnatural laws, like the 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:19.039 Peter principle, which we've podcasted on Parkinson's Law, which is 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.320 um work expands to fill the time allotted, and then 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.399 Murphy's Law, which is, of course anything that can go 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.319 wrong will go wrong. Right. So I was kind of 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.640 always aware of this, and I pitched this idea like 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.880 how Murphy's Law works, like right after I got here 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.080 at how stuff works, and um, I got the assignment 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.600 and started doing this research. I found out that there's 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.960 this awesome backstory to this, which I know you know 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.120 now and have for a while because we made a 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.640 Toyota commercial based on part of it. You're telling me 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:55.880 this now exactly exactly, So I guess what I'm saying 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.360 is I wanted to redo how Murphy's Law works, a reboot, 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.480 and let's do it. And no disrespect to previous podcasters, 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.920 but this was just too short, you know, too short. 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.480 You can't cover Murphy's on in five minutes. No you can't. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.760 So here's the expanded version, and we're not gonna like 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.320 start rerunning things. Don't worry, there's plenty of topics out there. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:17.760 This one just really kind of I always wanted to 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.160 redo this one was stuck in your crawl and no 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:25.520 it's no, it's out it's not your crawl. Uh idiom, Josh, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.320 that's what we're talking about. Whatever can go wrong, we'll 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.920 go wrong. And uh, you make a good point at 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.680 the beginning of this is it's it's an idiom because 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.840 we've made it an idiom, and uh, you don't notice 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.120 and make remarks about when things go perfectly right, you 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.280 might feel good and be like, hey, everything's coming up 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.040 rosen today, or maybe that's an idiom. It's not an idiom. 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.280 Actually it's a saying. But you never you don't say, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.200 you know, boy, I got in this lane of traffic 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.880 and it's just speeding along, and I should make a 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.359 saying about that. You can, but very rarely do you Like, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.679 we humans tend to focus more on the negative, you know, 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.600 And that's what Murphy's law is. It's a focus on 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.000 the negative. That's right. We look out for the bad 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.080 in a way. And Murphy's law itself, Chuck, is not 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.800 that old, to tell you the truth, And it wasn't Um. 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:20.000 It wasn't Murphy who originally coined this idea. There was 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.119 a um. There was a something called Sod's law that's 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:28.160 still around in Great Britain, which says, uh, basically the 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.560 same thing, any bad thing that can happen to some 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:36.200 poor sod which is short for sodomite, is it? Yeah? Yeah, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.600 no comment. And then there was a magician named Adam 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.440 hole Shirk apparently in wrote something called on Getting out 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.520 of Things, an essay on magic, which is not on 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.920 the internet. Yeah I did too. Actually, um it said 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.360 in a magic act, nine out of ten things that 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.640 can go wrong usually will And I thought maybe Adam 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.080 was just a bad magician when I read that. Really, 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.520 so he he gets credit, like just about any origin 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.160 story of Murphy's Law includes Adam hole Shirk, and it should. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:13.080 But it wasn't called Murphy's Law, no, um until a 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.560 guy there actually was a guy named Murphy, and he 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:18.960 actually did live not too long ago. He died in 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:23.600 nineteen nine, I believe this article says, but it's eighty nine. Um, 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.360 you're gonna go back and change that. And um, he 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.800 was a captain in the Air Force, and he is 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.760 attributed with not coining Murphy's Law depending on who you 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.240 talk to, but spurring the idea of Murphy's law who 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.279 were which was coined by somebody else? Right, So let's 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.440 let's set the stage Chuck, it's ninety we're in California 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.000 in my hand exactly. We're at um Edwards Air Force Space. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.560 We need to get into the way back machine here. Man, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:05:04.839 it's been a while. Okay, So as I said, Edwards 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:09.640 Air Force Pace. It's very nice. Um, there's Chuck Yeager right, 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:14.120 see look at him go and then over there on 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.279 that that that railroad track is kind of in the 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.000 middle of nowhere. Uh is the rocket sled the g 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.159 whiz rocket sled. That's a Nego name. So let's talk 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.520 about that. Okay, what is it? Well, this was part 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.760 of the Project m X, and they were tests to 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:37.279 determine how the body, the human body, reacted to G force. Yeah, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.280 there's a long standing idea that the human body could 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.479 withstand eighteen g s and all airplanes were designed to 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.880 uh withstand eighteen g's of force and nothing more, right, 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.920 which means that, um, they were kind of hamstrung by 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.040 this magical number. But no one knew exactly where that 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.360 number came from. Her if it was true. What's screwy 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:02.640 is that they had no way to find out except 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.640 for these rockets led tests. That's right, using a real 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.799 live human being, Because if you're going to test something, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.000 you can't throw a crash test dummy in there. You 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.640 could in the ninety nine. Now, well, yeah, these days 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.880 they have sensors and actually not to be pluggy, but 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.320 Toyota came up with the thing that that measures the 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:28.000 total human uh model for safety and it measures internal damage. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.000 So like it's very sophisticated now, but back then, if 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.159 you want to find some of the stuff out, you 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.800 had to put a human in there. Well, at first 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:41.760 they used cadavers, then they used dummies like Sierra Sam 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.560 and then on the g Wiz rocket tests they used 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.560 um oscar eight ball, but there they didn't have sensors 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.280 for it, so they had to use John Paul Stapp 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.600 who volunteered, who was a really incredible renaissance man. He's 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.880 a colonel. Yeah in the Air Force. He was a 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.719 physician UM and he uh he flew around in a 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.520 in an airplane without a canopy. Remember that I've heard that. Um. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.520 He also uh basically made it his life's work to 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:16.480 get seatbelts made mandatory in automobiles. So he staged the 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.280 first ever UM automobile crash tests, and he did it 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.720 at the expense of the Air Force, and the Air 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:24.560 Force was like, hey, whoa, what are you doing? What 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:26.880 are you expensing these dust for? These are cars, we 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.640 we fly planes. And he came up with statistics that 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.240 showed that more Air Force pilots died from car rex 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.400 and from plane rex and they said okay. And that 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.640 was just the kind of guy. He was, real stand 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.280 up dude, he was. So what he did was he 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.080 jumped in the g with said, hey, I'll do it. 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.640 I'm Colonel John Paul Staff. I do this kind of thing. 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.160 And it would go about two hundred miles an hour 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.160 down a half mile track and then stop in less 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.280 than a second. And what they're trying to test is 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:55.560 say that one more time to go two hundred miles 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.680 an hour and stop and lessen a second. Yeah, that's crazy. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.240 That's basically they're trying to test what might happen in 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.560 a plane crash. So they were they were finding the 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.680 force of gravity, how much a human coupe withstand? And 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.000 remember eighteen was that magic number, And in very short 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.520 order John Paul stap withstood eighteen ges and then twenty 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.960 and then and I think he made it up to 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:23.040 forty six point to six was the most he experienced. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.160 I think you're ever like the highest roller coaster would 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.080 always go to that, but the roller coaster with the 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.680 highest acceleration is like two point seven g's. This guy 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.720 did forty six point to six and he suffered for 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:39.120 it too. Yeah, big time, broken bones, concussions, broken blood 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.920 vessels in its eyes. Yeah, he'd have white outs, which 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.000 is when when he was going backwards, they'd turn him 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.200 around sometimes so he wouldn't get the bugs in his 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.040 face and he would have white outs, which is all 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.120 the blood is pulling in the back of the head, 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.400 so he has no blood in his eyes, which means 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.840 you can't see or you get read out to where 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.320 all the blood was pulling in the front of his 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.000 face and he couldn't see because there was too much 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:03.920 blood in his eyes. I wonder if they were like, hey, 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.920 let's put him sideways, it happens, it would be like 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.040 a pink out. Yeah, a one eye is read one 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.920 is white. Yeah. So this is all going pretty well 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.360 for step if you consider that a success. And then 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.080 Murphy Captain Murphy shows up on the scene and says, hey, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.400 you know, I've got these sensors that will give you 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.880 a much more accurate read of the g force. So 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.280 let's get my assistant. I don't know why he didn't 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.040 do it himself. No, it was one of the This 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.720 is Project MXE. It was one of the project's assistants. Murphy. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:36.800 Why didn't he do it is what I want to know. 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.000 I don't know, because there's another saying if you want 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.360 something done right, do it yourself. And I would have 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:45.560 rubbed that in his face. They didn't, though, and and 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.880 supposedly tell him about the sensors, well, that the sensors 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:50.800 would give you a more accurate reading. And then the 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.240 assistant evidently, uh, hook them up wrong. And there are 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:57.760 there was one way to hook up each one of these, 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.080 and he did the opposite way for two ways. Well, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.120 there's one correct way right to hook up the censor, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.720 and then he did it the wrong way on every 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.640 single one of them. And then Murphy said out loud 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.000 to somebody that if there are two ways of doing something, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.040 one of these will result in disaster. He's gonna do 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.880 it that way, or he said something along the lines 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.400 of if there's any way they can do it wrong, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.200 they will. Um. It depends on who you talk to. 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.800 There were living witnesses in two thousand when this guy 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.160 for Improbable Research, who who hosts the ig Nobel Awards 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.240 UM wrote a pretty comprehensive article on it um and 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.000 he interviewed these people and they said he roughly said that, 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.360 or he said something like you said, but ultimately he 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.160 was grumbling and it was loud enough, and he was 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.960 saying it about these people that he just met, who 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.880 had you know, incorrectly hooked up the sensors. Okay, well 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.120 let's hook him right and do it again. It's not 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.920 a big deal. So Murphy apparently, if you talk to 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:58.880 the witnesses, was kind of thought of as a bit 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.400 of a jerk. That's what I think, which is something 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.679 his son still to this day disputes. He says that 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.720 that is not in his father's character. His father was 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.000 not a jerk, and he wouldn't have he wouldn't have 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.840 been so rude or boorish. But most of the witnesses 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.440 say he said something like that. That was the seed. 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.839 How did the tree come about? The tree came about? 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:24.120 Because uh, stab was apparently a pretty gregarious guy. Obviously, 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.520 if he's taking part in these tests with a plum, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.360 then he's gonna probably be a pretty fun guy to 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.920 be around. Well, he had he had two books Chuck 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:37.240 of um idioms. One was it was called STAPs Almanac, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.200 the other was four Year Moments of Inertia. And he 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.559 had already come up with his own little saying Stepp's 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.880 ironical paradox, which is the universal aptitude for an aptitude 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.560 makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle. So he was 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.560 already generally on the lookout for new bits of wisdom. 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.040 He's stealing these things from people, basically, and he stole 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.720 it from Murphy Fee and at a press conference the 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.199 next day said and this is where you know it 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.960 took off obviously, because the press conference he said that, hey, uh, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.640 we we have a good safety record because we are 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.200 aware of Murphy's law, which is whatever can go wrong 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.360 will go wrong. And they all got a big laugh. 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.160 That's brilliant, and they all ranted the pay phones and 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.200 called it in. Yeah, it makes it into like some 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.320 aerospace publications, and then it disseminates out. It's just like 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.080 just a perfect gem, perfectly encapsulated. Whatever can go wrong 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.400 will go wrong. It's just say universal truth in unnatural law, right, 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.840 and um it kind of gave a kickstart to this 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.680 whole There's a trend in the fifties of people being 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.800 pithy like like, um because Peter and Principle. Yeah, and 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.280 actually I found out, Um, Lawrence Peter, who who came 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.240 up with the Peter principal and um Captain Murphy became 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.320 lifelong friends. Wasn't that special in it? Um. But it 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.720 gave rise to all these other ideas, these unnatural laws. 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:02.560 It was kind of a trend. Like I said, in 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.640 the fifties and sixties, I think people wanted to put 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.079 their name on something. Right, So I selected a few 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.040 out of there's lists on the internet that are just 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.920 you can scroll for hours now at the bottom of 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.280 these things, right, but um, you want to read some 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.520 of these Uh. It tours observation. The other line moves faster, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.800 which makes sense. Boobs law. You will always find something 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.200 in the last place you look. What's another good one here? 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.240 Franklin's rule, blessed is he who expects nothing, for he 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.840 will not be disappointed. Lincoln's law, those who can do 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.360 do those who cannot teach, which just mean. It is mean, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.840 especially to teachers. It's so disrespectful. Uh. And then Patton 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.400 General Georgia's Patton had a law that a good plan 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.480 to day is better than a perfect plan tomorrow, because 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:56.640 by then Charlie's killed you Right, he wasn't Vietnam, No, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:01.360 but oh you just meant a guy named Charlie. Okay, yeah, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.080 uh so yeah. People obviously like naming things after themselves 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.920 and coming up with pithy little sayings that people like 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.160 to say. Right, But there's there and there's two ways 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.480 that Murphy's law can be um categorized. It can be 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.679 categorized in the realm of pithy sayings from the fifties 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.560 and sixties, like the Peter principle, which, as you remember, 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.880 it did make sense it had it had some gravity 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.080 to it Peter. Or you can look at Murphy's law 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.560 and the coining of it in by John Paul stat 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:38.840 as the formulation of the basis for all engineering thought 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.000 that came after that point, which was the creation of 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.120 fail safe, the creation of redundant systems, and the idea 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.640 that you should plan for everything going wrong so that 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.560 if it does go wrong, it's covered and the system 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.680 doesn't want it won't break down. Sure, it gave a 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.440 saying to that practice. It was already in practice, but 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.240 people didn't start building fail says because of Murphy's Law. 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:08.720 You know what I'm saying, I don't know, man, well, seatbelts, 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.360 that's a fail safe. Uh. And that is not just 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.600 from Murphy's Law. That was from staff himself when you're 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:22.040 pushing this legislation. So let's talk about like the principles 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.360 going on behind Murphy's law. Fatalism, it's pretty much it. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:31.520 Fatalism is the idea that we are just walking around 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.400 subject to whatever fate, you know, whatever happens to us, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.480 whatever fate dictates. Like, if you're in a line of traffic, right, yeah, 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.160 and you it seems like all other lines are going 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:49.320 except for yours, right. This is explainable. It's explicable, Like 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.120 you're not paying attention to the other lines of traffic 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.560 when your line is going because you're paying attention to 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.240 not hit the person in front of you. When you're 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.200 just sitting there, all you notice is that the other 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.720 lanes are going. But if you could really statistically explain, 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.400 you know, how often the lanes of traffic are moving, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.920 it's probably fairly even. Probably, so I always kind of well, 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.040 actually have I go in the lane that I think 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.120 is going to be moving. But because we're fatalistic, we 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.160 we It's like, why why does the universe hate me? 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.760 I'm totally powerless to make traffic move right? And then 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.000 free will was not well, not the opposite. But that's 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.840 the other idea, is that, uh, we have free will 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.480 for all of our choices and all of our consequences 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.320 are due to things that we have made happen, right, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.320 and the the attendant with free will is the risk 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.320 of failure. So when we have a fifty chance of 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.840 getting something right, well, we're gonna get it wrong or 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.960 we're gonna notice mostly when we get it wrong, because 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.040 then we have to do it again, and it's just 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.720 so much trouble to try to put the plug in 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.480 the right way. Yeah right, the three pong failsafe plug 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:06.800 you yeah, okay, but other prongs electrical sockets. If you 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.600 look at them, one's bigger than the other, that's fail safe. 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:18.119 After Murphy's Law changed everything another for that, it was 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:23.240 just death ville for everything there was well yeah, well there, 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.000 let me put it to you this way. There was 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:30.439 something like um, twenty five million licensed motorists in the 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:35.199 US and like forty three thousand deaths on the highways 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.359 in like nineteen sixty, I think something like that. In 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.240 two thousand there was seventy five million licensed motorists and 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.680 about as many deaths. So yeah, when before Murphy came 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.560 along and there were no fail safe and one had 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.560 any idea what they were doing, I'll dispute that. But 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.840 did ever show you the video of the the car 0:17:54.880 --> 0:18:01.160 crashes like the old what blood on the asshole? The uh? 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.480 They did this? High speed car crashes with an old 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:07.919 like you know when you see those old tanks like 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.400 oh man, back then were in Paula or something. Yeah, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.000 like those big old tanks. Those were like they were 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.679 tanks because their tanks and they I bet you were 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.600 safe in those seat belts. But they compared the crash 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.200 to a modern car and the old car, man just 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.960 I mean squashed and crumbled like a tin can. Really, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.919 oh dude, yeah, because cows cows. Cars are just engineered 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.560 these days, as our cows couple zones and things like yeah, man, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.080 and it's it might be made of plastic, but it's 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.000 amazing when you watch this thing. Back then, they were 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.040 huge and made of metal, but at enough impact that 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:47.840 metal just becomes nothing it's pretty interesting. Speaking of cows 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.080 being engineered. You remember that cow um on Millage in 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.960 Athens that had the porthole in it so they could 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.959 like open it up and reach inside and I think 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.320 fertilize it or they were doing something. I never saw that, 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.720 but that cow. It was crazy. Murphy's law happened to 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.080 that cow. I wrote about that. They they have those 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.040 little portals into their stomachs so they can study things 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.840 like that's like right there on the side. And then also, Chuck, 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.160 I want to point out Rodyard Kipling, right, he provides 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.879 us a good example of the whole y me attitude 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.600 of humanity, and then the mathematical explanation of why you 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.560 pal you're Kipling once lamented that no matter how you 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.919 drop it, the the bread that you dropped out of 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.480 your hand onto the floor always falls butter side down, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.760 which means you can't treat it any longer, and it 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:44.199 gives you the vapors so um. If you think about it, 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.440 a buttered piece of bread is heavier on one side 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.120 than the other, so thanks to the force of gravity 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.399 on the way down, the bread is going to flip 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.960 over that. But it's yes, but it's heavier as we 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.280 proved this, give me some bread. Well, I just don't. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.200 I just wanted has proven and not. I think it's interesting. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.359 But we'll think about this. I just wonder how much 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.360 butter would it literally take to cause it to flip over. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.520 There's a certain amount, And I think also this is 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:18.119 going to happen more frequently with um plain untoasted bread 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.480 and butter rather than like toast with butter melted in it, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.080 which may be distributed evenly throughout the bread. But the 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.040 point is is, yes, it's going to flip over, but 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.359 it's not going to flip back over because the heavier 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.520 side is now being dragged towards the earth. But if 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.800 it does fall butter side up, then that's just good luck. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:42.480 That's fate. Okay. So again there's there's a certain amount 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.000 of I guess math or science to Murphy's law. There 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.400 can be if you really want to look for it. 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.960 And your name's Joel Pell right, Yeah, he's he's another 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.440 fun killer, like the laughter guys. I know math people 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.639 will take issue with that, but I take issue with 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.640 everything having to be stated as a math formula. Well, 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.400 this guy, he begs to differ. He does he's a 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.800 biological engineer at the University of British Columbia, and I 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.639 think in two thousand five he came up with Murphy's equation, 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.520 which basically he figured out how to quantify the probability 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.080 that things will go wrong when they can go wrong. 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:24.879 Right A, you're gonna read it. It's pretty impossible to 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.040 read out loud. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I can, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.440 because what's the opposite of to the something power when 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.439 it's like down below into the right rather than up 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.840 into the idea. Well, basically he figured out that the 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:41.000 importance of the event I times the complexity of the 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.760 system involved CE times the urgency of the need for 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.879 the system of work you plus the frequency the system 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:54.040 is used equals p the probability that the Murphy's law 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.560 will kick in. And one is definite. I think ten 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.560 is it's not going to happen, and somewhere in between 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.159 is it might happen, it might not. So what he 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.680 did was he basically plugged in the um the possibility 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.399 of his clutch going out in a rainstorm sixty miles 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:16.480 a hundred kilometers from his house UM, and he came 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.479 up with an answer of one, which means that his 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:21.960 clutch was definitely going to go out. And he further 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.840 demonstrated that what now that he's stranded out in the 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.600 rainstorm and he needs to get somewhere by foot, he 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.119 needs his flashlight to work. Um, what's the what's the 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.160 probability that Murphy's law will happen and the flashlight will 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.560 be out? He plugged it in and came up with 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.120 the one again. So he very facetiously proved that Murphy's 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.439 Law is real and his equation worked. I hope this 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.760 guy got stuck in a rainstorm a flashlight, That's what 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.080 I hope. Poor Joel pell I had to um correspond 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.520 with him for this. Yeah, I did get permission to 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:59.159 use his equation and he said, sure, here's a cool dude. 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.920 Yeah really Yeah? All right, So, Chuck, we talked about 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.240 like prongs being designed with fail safe seat belts are 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:11.200 a fail safe diesel pump nozzles there. They are designed 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.840