Murphy's Law and Edward A. Murphy

[Gerald Cohen]

    Re: the origin Murphy's Law, Douglas Wilson today draws attention
to Edward A. Murphy.  Barry Popik has already looked into the Edward
A. Murphy matter in some detail and come up empty-handed in this
regard [His research is very valuable though]. The existence of this
Edward A. Murphy is evidently as  difficult to verify as the Dr.
Condom who supposedly gave his name to "condom" and the pettifogging
attorney Scheuster whose name is sometimes (e.g. Webster III) said to
have provided the term "shyster."

    I have Barry's material on "Murphy's Law" at my office. I'll check
it when I get there and then share some of its additional information
with with ADS-L.  Actually, Barry's articles on the subject are based
on material he first shared with us.

---Gerald Cohen

(from Douglas Wilson's message):
At 9:37 AM -0600 12/15/00, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>
>>   Barry Popik has done considerable research on  "Murphy's Law" in an
>>attempt to track down the original Murphy. Thus far no relevant
>>Murphy has turned up whose existence can be verified.
>
>There is a discussion with a purported exact (Edward A. Murphy) origin at:
[...]