"Murphy's law" 1951 and 1952

[Stephen Goranson]

A little more on the early "Murphy's law" texts.

Scientific American, September 1952 "The Amateur Scientist: About home-made
cloud chambers and the fine telescope of a Portugese navy officer," Conducted
by Albert G. Ingalls, pp. 179f.

p.181 col. 1
At this point enters the well-known 'first law of research'--sometimes called
'Murphy's law.' The law may be stated roughly as follows: 'If anything can go
wrong, it will.'
[This text is part of a report by I. [Isaac] Clyde Cornog, of the
Randal Morgan
Laboratory of Physics at U. Penn. So I.C. Cornog [U. Penn. PhD 1928] is, so
far, the earliest known named user of the collocation.]

p.182 col. 3
The department [at U. Penn.] has built several successful diffusion chambers
based on Dr. [I. Clyde] Cornog's description, but in every case only
after some
sharp tussles with Murphy's law.
[This text is by Ingalls.]


Genetic Psychology Monographs: Child Behavior, Animal Behavior, and
Comparative Psychology. May, 1951, Volume 43, Second Half
A Psychological Study of Physical Scientists, By Anne Roe, pp. 121-235
p.204
As for himself he realized that this was the inexorable working of the second
law of the thermodynamics which stated Murphy's law "If anything can go wrong
it will." I always liked Murphy's law, I was told that by an architect.
["that" is not necessarily "Murphy's law," but could refer to an earlier story
in this text about a different architect and about church statues, perhaps
vaguely reminiscent of A. Gaudi.]
[This text is part of a response by an unnamed theoretical physicist on being
shown a picture by the psychologist, Roe. Elsewhere in this publication there
is further biographical information about this individual, "TP [presumably,
Theoretical Physicist] 3." It may eventually be possibly to identify this
individual. For now, I'll note that there is another physicist named Cornog,
Robert Cornog [is he a younger brother of I.C. Cornog?]. There are, of course,
many people named Murphy. E.g. physicist Edgar J. Murphy [NYU PhD 1934],
presumably known to R. Cornog [UC Berkeley PhD 1940]; both worked on atomic
weapons. Another contemporary Murphy: psychologist Gardner Murphy.]

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

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