The Finagle's law reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Finagle's law

This adage is the generalized or "folk" version of Murphy's law, fully named Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will." One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also Hanlon's razor). The term "Finagle's Law" was first used by John W. Campbell, Jr, the very influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog). He used it frequently in his editorials for many years in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s but it never came into general usage the way Murphy's Law has. Eventually the term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.

See also

• Murphy's law
• Hanlon's razor
• Sturgeon's law
• Second law of thermodynamics

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