Murphy Calculator

2010-05-08T08:24:00.007+02:00

If you think you understand Risk, you don't understand Risk
Maggid after : Feynman

If you are not completely confused by Risk, you do not understand it
Maggid after : John Wheeler

Sure, risk is hard to tackle. The more you learn about risk, the more you become aware of it's sneaky characteristics (clustering, tails, etc).

Murphy

Probably one of the more intriguing risk quotes is Murphy's Law :

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"

In 2004 British Gas commissioned some scientists to create a formula to predict Murphy's Law, also known as Sod's Law.

Murphy's Formula

In a 2005 study, based on a survey of 1,023 adults, Murphy’s Law was shown 'statistically significant'. The final report also supplied a formula for predicting occurrences of Murphy’s Law. Here it is....

Let U, C, I, S, and F be integers between 1 and 9, reflecting respectively comparative levels of Urgency, Complexity, Importance, Skills, and Frequency in a given set of circumstances. Let A, which stands for Aggravation, equal 0.7 (Please, don’t ask why). The likelihood (L) of Murphy’s Law obtaining under those circumstances, on a scale of 0 to 8.6, turns out to be:

L = [((U + C + I) x (10 - S)) / 20] x A x 1 / (1 - sin (F / 10))

Murphy's Formula strikes itself
Unfortunately, Murphy's law suffered from self reference, as one of the authors, the mathematician Phil Obayda, commented on a 2004 blog that this formula is wrong.

The correct formula according to Phil is:

P= (((U+C+I) * (1-S))/2) * A * (1/(1-Sin F))

with P = probability of Sod's Law Occuring and U, C, I, S and F values greater than 0 and less than 1, keeping the mysterious A = 0.7.

Murphy's formula simplified
Simplifying this last formula leads to a new formula for the probability (%) of Murphy hitting you, whenever you perform a task:

So next time you want to know the failure probability of a task, use the next Online Murphy Calculater.

Good Luck with Murphy's calculator!

Used sources/Links:
- Sod’s Law: A Proof
- Newyorker: Murphy At the Bat
- The Engineering of Murphy's Law?
- Legend, Inc. Murphy's Laws
- The Stock Market: Risk vs. Uncertainty
- Murphy's Online Calculator

Table Converter

2009-01-19T23:53:00.003+01:00

Do you recognize this? Sometimes you spend hours copying a simple table from a WORD-document, Internet Page or PDF-file to your (Excel) spreadsheet.
What should take about two minutes work, ends in frustration. Finally you decide to fill your spreadsheet by hand.

These times are over. With the next simple javascript application, called

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2009-01-19T23:41:00.001+01:00

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