Improbable Research

It has long been clear to the author (if to no one else) that science lacks a convention for measuring failure. While the discovery of many other basic laws of nature has led to an eponymous unit that describes a measurable quantity in the law - to wit, Newton’s Law and the force unit of ‘newton’, Ampere’s Law and the ‘ampere’, etc. - there does not yet exist a quantitative physical expression of Murphy’s Law. I propose to remedy the situation by defining a set of units that quantify failure, and then casting Murphy’s Law in a mathematical form based on these units. As part of this undertaking, I attempt, and fail, to identify the physical principles that underlie this most basic of scientific truths.

I recognize that there already exists a colorful but imprecise English system of units—e.g., the ‘goof’, the ‘screwup’, the ‘royal screwup’, and onwards into the realm of profanity. Though highly descriptive and rich with history, these units are basically qualitative. True failures deserve to be measured.

The basic unit, which I modestly propose to call the ‘murphy’, represents the magnitude of a standardized thing that can go wrong. To be meaningful and useful, this unit must be referenced to a universal standard of failure, the value of which is maintained by a public institution. Almost any local, national, or international agency would be an appropriate custodian of the standard.