Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Murphy's Law Works, the Redux

Transcript

How Murphy's Law Works, the Redux · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: who is with me as always but hasn't been with
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: me as always. Mean, there was a dark, dark time
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in my life, Chuck. I call it the pre Chuck era.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: You're two kind. And there were, um several many podcasts
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that I released with other people. Um, I don't feel
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: good about it, okay, but there it's out there. There's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: one that always stuck out to me that I was like,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: there's so much more information. You remember, like back in
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the day, we used to try to hit these things
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: at like five minutes. Yeah, to say this is evolved
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is an understatement, right. Um. So there was one that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I was like, five minutes is not an enough for this,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Let's do something like thirty seven minutes instead. And um
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: it was Murphy's Law. So I really this article a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: long time ago. It was like how Murphy's Law works.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Like I was raised on these unnatural laws, like the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Peter principle, which we've podcasted on Parkinson's Law, which is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: um work expands to fill the time allotted, and then
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Murphy's Law, which is, of course anything that can go
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: wrong will go wrong. Right. So I was kind of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: always aware of this, and I pitched this idea like
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: how Murphy's Law works, like right after I got here
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: at how stuff works, and um, I got the assignment
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and started doing this research. I found out that there's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this awesome backstory to this, which I know you know
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: now and have for a while because we made a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Toyota commercial based on part of it. You're telling me
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: this now exactly exactly, So I guess what I'm saying
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is I wanted to redo how Murphy's Law works, a reboot,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and let's do it. And no disrespect to previous podcasters,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: but this was just too short, you know, too short.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You can't cover Murphy's on in five minutes. No you can't.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So here's the expanded version, and we're not gonna like
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: start rerunning things. Don't worry, there's plenty of topics out there.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: This one just really kind of I always wanted to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: redo this one was stuck in your crawl and no
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it's no, it's out it's not your crawl. Uh idiom, Josh,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. Whatever can go wrong, we'll
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: go wrong. And uh, you make a good point at
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning of this is it's it's an idiom because
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: we've made it an idiom, and uh, you don't notice
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and make remarks about when things go perfectly right, you
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: might feel good and be like, hey, everything's coming up
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: rosen today, or maybe that's an idiom. It's not an idiom.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Actually it's a saying. But you never you don't say,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you know, boy, I got in this lane of traffic
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and it's just speeding along, and I should make a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: saying about that. You can, but very rarely do you Like,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: we humans tend to focus more on the negative, you know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And that's what Murphy's law is. It's a focus on
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the negative. That's right. We look out for the bad
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in a way. And Murphy's law itself, Chuck, is not
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that old, to tell you the truth, And it wasn't Um.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: It wasn't Murphy who originally coined this idea. There was
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a um. There was a something called Sod's law that's
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: still around in Great Britain, which says, uh, basically the
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: same thing, any bad thing that can happen to some
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: poor sod which is short for sodomite, is it? Yeah? Yeah,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: no comment. And then there was a magician named Adam
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: hole Shirk apparently in wrote something called on Getting out
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of Things, an essay on magic, which is not on
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah I did too. Actually, um it said
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: in a magic act, nine out of ten things that
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: can go wrong usually will And I thought maybe Adam
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: was just a bad magician when I read that. Really,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: so he he gets credit, like just about any origin
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: story of Murphy's Law includes Adam hole Shirk, and it should.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't called Murphy's Law, no, um until a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: guy there actually was a guy named Murphy, and he
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: actually did live not too long ago. He died in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: nineteen nine, I believe this article says, but it's eighty nine. Um,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you're gonna go back and change that. And um, he
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: was a captain in the Air Force, and he is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: attributed with not coining Murphy's Law depending on who you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: talk to, but spurring the idea of Murphy's law who
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: were which was coined by somebody else? Right, So let's
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: let's set the stage Chuck, it's ninety we're in California
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in my hand exactly. We're at um Edwards Air Force Space.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We need to get into the way back machine here. Man,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: it's been a while. Okay, So as I said, Edwards
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Air Force Pace. It's very nice. Um, there's Chuck Yeager right,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: see look at him go and then over there on
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: that that that railroad track is kind of in the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere. Uh is the rocket sled the g
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: whiz rocket sled. That's a Nego name. So let's talk
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: about that. Okay, what is it? Well, this was part
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of the Project m X, and they were tests to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: determine how the body, the human body, reacted to G force. Yeah,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: there's a long standing idea that the human body could
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: withstand eighteen g s and all airplanes were designed to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: uh withstand eighteen g's of force and nothing more, right,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: which means that, um, they were kind of hamstrung by
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this magical number. But no one knew exactly where that
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: number came from. Her if it was true. What's screwy
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is that they had no way to find out except
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: for these rockets led tests. That's right, using a real
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: live human being, Because if you're going to test something,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: you can't throw a crash test dummy in there. You
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: could in the ninety nine. Now, well, yeah, these days
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: they have sensors and actually not to be pluggy, but
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Toyota came up with the thing that that measures the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: total human uh model for safety and it measures internal damage.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So like it's very sophisticated now, but back then, if
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you want to find some of the stuff out, you
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: had to put a human in there. Well, at first
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they used cadavers, then they used dummies like Sierra Sam
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and then on the g Wiz rocket tests they used
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: um oscar eight ball, but there they didn't have sensors
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: for it, so they had to use John Paul Stapp
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: who volunteered, who was a really incredible renaissance man. He's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a colonel. Yeah in the Air Force. He was a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: physician UM and he uh he flew around in a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in an airplane without a canopy. Remember that I've heard that. Um.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He also uh basically made it his life's work to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: get seatbelts made mandatory in automobiles. So he staged the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: first ever UM automobile crash tests, and he did it
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: at the expense of the Air Force, and the Air
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Force was like, hey, whoa, what are you doing? What
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: are you expensing these dust for? These are cars, we
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: we fly planes. And he came up with statistics that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: showed that more Air Force pilots died from car rex
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and from plane rex and they said okay. And that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was just the kind of guy. He was, real stand
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: up dude, he was. So what he did was he
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: jumped in the g with said, hey, I'll do it.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I'm Colonel John Paul Staff. I do this kind of thing.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And it would go about two hundred miles an hour
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: down a half mile track and then stop in less
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: than a second. And what they're trying to test is
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: say that one more time to go two hundred miles
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: an hour and stop and lessen a second. Yeah, that's crazy.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: That's basically they're trying to test what might happen in
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: a plane crash. So they were they were finding the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: force of gravity, how much a human coupe withstand? And
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: remember eighteen was that magic number, And in very short
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: order John Paul stap withstood eighteen ges and then twenty
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and then and I think he made it up to
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: forty six point to six was the most he experienced.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I think you're ever like the highest roller coaster would
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: always go to that, but the roller coaster with the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: highest acceleration is like two point seven g's. This guy
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: did forty six point to six and he suffered for
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it too. Yeah, big time, broken bones, concussions, broken blood
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: vessels in its eyes. Yeah, he'd have white outs, which
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: is when when he was going backwards, they'd turn him
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: around sometimes so he wouldn't get the bugs in his
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: face and he would have white outs, which is all
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the blood is pulling in the back of the head,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: so he has no blood in his eyes, which means
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: you can't see or you get read out to where
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: all the blood was pulling in the front of his
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: face and he couldn't see because there was too much
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: blood in his eyes. I wonder if they were like, hey,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: let's put him sideways, it happens, it would be like
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a pink out. Yeah, a one eye is read one
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: is white. Yeah. So this is all going pretty well
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: for step if you consider that a success. And then
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Murphy Captain Murphy shows up on the scene and says, hey,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I've got these sensors that will give you
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a much more accurate read of the g force. So
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: let's get my assistant. I don't know why he didn't
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: do it himself. No, it was one of the This
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: is Project MXE. It was one of the project's assistants. Murphy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Why didn't he do it is what I want to know.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because there's another saying if you want
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: something done right, do it yourself. And I would have
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: rubbed that in his face. They didn't, though, and and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: supposedly tell him about the sensors, well, that the sensors
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: would give you a more accurate reading. And then the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: assistant evidently, uh, hook them up wrong. And there are
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: there was one way to hook up each one of these,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and he did the opposite way for two ways. Well,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: there's one correct way right to hook up the censor,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and then he did it the wrong way on every
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: single one of them. And then Murphy said out loud
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to somebody that if there are two ways of doing something,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: one of these will result in disaster. He's gonna do
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: it that way, or he said something along the lines
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: of if there's any way they can do it wrong,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: they will. Um. It depends on who you talk to.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: There were living witnesses in two thousand when this guy
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: for Improbable Research, who who hosts the ig Nobel Awards
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: UM wrote a pretty comprehensive article on it um and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: he interviewed these people and they said he roughly said that,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: or he said something like you said, but ultimately he
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was grumbling and it was loud enough, and he was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: saying it about these people that he just met, who
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: had you know, incorrectly hooked up the sensors. Okay, well
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: let's hook him right and do it again. It's not
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a big deal. So Murphy apparently, if you talk to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the witnesses, was kind of thought of as a bit
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of a jerk. That's what I think, which is something
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: his son still to this day disputes. He says that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that is not in his father's character. His father was
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: not a jerk, and he wouldn't have he wouldn't have
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: been so rude or boorish. But most of the witnesses
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: say he said something like that. That was the seed.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: How did the tree come about? The tree came about?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Because uh, stab was apparently a pretty gregarious guy. Obviously,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: if he's taking part in these tests with a plum,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: then he's gonna probably be a pretty fun guy to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: be around. Well, he had he had two books Chuck
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of um idioms. One was it was called STAPs Almanac,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the other was four Year Moments of Inertia. And he
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: had already come up with his own little saying Stepp's
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: ironical paradox, which is the universal aptitude for an aptitude
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle. So he was
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: already generally on the lookout for new bits of wisdom.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: He's stealing these things from people, basically, and he stole
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it from Murphy Fee and at a press conference the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: next day said and this is where you know it
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: took off obviously, because the press conference he said that, hey, uh,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we we have a good safety record because we are
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: aware of Murphy's law, which is whatever can go wrong
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: will go wrong. And they all got a big laugh.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: That's brilliant, and they all ranted the pay phones and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: called it in. Yeah, it makes it into like some
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: aerospace publications, and then it disseminates out. It's just like
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: just a perfect gem, perfectly encapsulated. Whatever can go wrong
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: will go wrong. It's just say universal truth in unnatural law, right,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and um it kind of gave a kickstart to this
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: whole There's a trend in the fifties of people being
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: pithy like like, um because Peter and Principle. Yeah, and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: actually I found out, Um, Lawrence Peter, who who came
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: up with the Peter principal and um Captain Murphy became
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: lifelong friends. Wasn't that special in it? Um. But it
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: gave rise to all these other ideas, these unnatural laws.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It was kind of a trend. Like I said, in
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, I think people wanted to put
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: their name on something. Right, So I selected a few
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: out of there's lists on the internet that are just
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you can scroll for hours now at the bottom of
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: these things, right, but um, you want to read some
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of these Uh. It tours observation. The other line moves faster,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: which makes sense. Boobs law. You will always find something
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in the last place you look. What's another good one here?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Franklin's rule, blessed is he who expects nothing, for he
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: will not be disappointed. Lincoln's law, those who can do
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: do those who cannot teach, which just mean. It is mean,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: especially to teachers. It's so disrespectful. Uh. And then Patton
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: General Georgia's Patton had a law that a good plan
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to day is better than a perfect plan tomorrow, because
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: by then Charlie's killed you Right, he wasn't Vietnam, No,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: but oh you just meant a guy named Charlie. Okay, yeah,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: uh so yeah. People obviously like naming things after themselves
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and coming up with pithy little sayings that people like
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to say. Right, But there's there and there's two ways
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: that Murphy's law can be um categorized. It can be
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: categorized in the realm of pithy sayings from the fifties
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and sixties, like the Peter principle, which, as you remember,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: it did make sense it had it had some gravity
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to it Peter. Or you can look at Murphy's law
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and the coining of it in by John Paul stat
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: as the formulation of the basis for all engineering thought
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that came after that point, which was the creation of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: fail safe, the creation of redundant systems, and the idea
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: that you should plan for everything going wrong so that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: if it does go wrong, it's covered and the system
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't want it won't break down. Sure, it gave a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: saying to that practice. It was already in practice, but
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: people didn't start building fail says because of Murphy's Law.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, I don't know, man, well, seatbelts,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that's a fail safe. Uh. And that is not just
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: from Murphy's Law. That was from staff himself when you're
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: pushing this legislation. So let's talk about like the principles
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: going on behind Murphy's law. Fatalism, it's pretty much it.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Fatalism is the idea that we are just walking around
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: subject to whatever fate, you know, whatever happens to us,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: whatever fate dictates. Like, if you're in a line of traffic, right, yeah,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and you it seems like all other lines are going
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: except for yours, right. This is explainable. It's explicable, Like
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: you're not paying attention to the other lines of traffic
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: when your line is going because you're paying attention to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: not hit the person in front of you. When you're
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: just sitting there, all you notice is that the other
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: lanes are going. But if you could really statistically explain,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you know, how often the lanes of traffic are moving,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it's probably fairly even. Probably, so I always kind of well,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: actually have I go in the lane that I think
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is going to be moving. But because we're fatalistic, we
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: we It's like, why why does the universe hate me?
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I'm totally powerless to make traffic move right? And then
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: free will was not well, not the opposite. But that's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the other idea, is that, uh, we have free will
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: for all of our choices and all of our consequences
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: are due to things that we have made happen, right,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and the the attendant with free will is the risk
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: of failure. So when we have a fifty chance of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: getting something right, well, we're gonna get it wrong or
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: we're gonna notice mostly when we get it wrong, because
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: then we have to do it again, and it's just
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: so much trouble to try to put the plug in
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the right way. Yeah right, the three pong failsafe plug
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you yeah, okay, but other prongs electrical sockets. If you
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: look at them, one's bigger than the other, that's fail safe.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: After Murphy's Law changed everything another for that, it was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: just death ville for everything there was well yeah, well there,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: let me put it to you this way. There was
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: something like um, twenty five million licensed motorists in the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: US and like forty three thousand deaths on the highways
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: in like nineteen sixty, I think something like that. In
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: two thousand there was seventy five million licensed motorists and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: about as many deaths. So yeah, when before Murphy came
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: along and there were no fail safe and one had
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: any idea what they were doing, I'll dispute that. But
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: did ever show you the video of the the car
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: crashes like the old what blood on the asshole? The uh?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: They did this? High speed car crashes with an old
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: like you know when you see those old tanks like
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: oh man, back then were in Paula or something. Yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: like those big old tanks. Those were like they were
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: tanks because their tanks and they I bet you were
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: safe in those seat belts. But they compared the crash
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to a modern car and the old car, man just
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I mean squashed and crumbled like a tin can. Really,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: oh dude, yeah, because cows cows. Cars are just engineered
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: these days, as our cows couple zones and things like yeah, man,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and it's it might be made of plastic, but it's
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: amazing when you watch this thing. Back then, they were
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: huge and made of metal, but at enough impact that
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: metal just becomes nothing it's pretty interesting. Speaking of cows
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: being engineered. You remember that cow um on Millage in
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Athens that had the porthole in it so they could
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: like open it up and reach inside and I think
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: fertilize it or they were doing something. I never saw that,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: but that cow. It was crazy. Murphy's law happened to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: that cow. I wrote about that. They they have those
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: little portals into their stomachs so they can study things
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: like that's like right there on the side. And then also, Chuck,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I want to point out Rodyard Kipling, right, he provides
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: us a good example of the whole y me attitude
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of humanity, and then the mathematical explanation of why you
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: pal you're Kipling once lamented that no matter how you
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: drop it, the the bread that you dropped out of
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: your hand onto the floor always falls butter side down,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: which means you can't treat it any longer, and it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: gives you the vapors so um. If you think about it,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a buttered piece of bread is heavier on one side
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: than the other, so thanks to the force of gravity
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: on the way down, the bread is going to flip
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: over that. But it's yes, but it's heavier as we
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: proved this, give me some bread. Well, I just don't.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I just wanted has proven and not. I think it's interesting.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But we'll think about this. I just wonder how much
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: butter would it literally take to cause it to flip over.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: There's a certain amount, And I think also this is
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: going to happen more frequently with um plain untoasted bread
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and butter rather than like toast with butter melted in it,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: which may be distributed evenly throughout the bread. But the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: point is is, yes, it's going to flip over, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it's not going to flip back over because the heavier
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: side is now being dragged towards the earth. But if
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it does fall butter side up, then that's just good luck.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: That's fate. Okay. So again there's there's a certain amount
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of I guess math or science to Murphy's law. There
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: can be if you really want to look for it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And your name's Joel Pell right, Yeah, he's he's another
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: fun killer, like the laughter guys. I know math people
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: will take issue with that, but I take issue with
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: everything having to be stated as a math formula. Well,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: this guy, he begs to differ. He does he's a
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: biological engineer at the University of British Columbia, and I
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: think in two thousand five he came up with Murphy's equation,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: which basically he figured out how to quantify the probability
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that things will go wrong when they can go wrong.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Right A, you're gonna read it. It's pretty impossible to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: read out loud. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I can,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: because what's the opposite of to the something power when
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it's like down below into the right rather than up
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: into the idea. Well, basically he figured out that the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: importance of the event I times the complexity of the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: system involved CE times the urgency of the need for
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the system of work you plus the frequency the system
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is used equals p the probability that the Murphy's law
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: will kick in. And one is definite. I think ten
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is it's not going to happen, and somewhere in between
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: is it might happen, it might not. So what he
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: did was he basically plugged in the um the possibility
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of his clutch going out in a rainstorm sixty miles
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a hundred kilometers from his house UM, and he came
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: up with an answer of one, which means that his
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: clutch was definitely going to go out. And he further
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: demonstrated that what now that he's stranded out in the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: rainstorm and he needs to get somewhere by foot, he
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: needs his flashlight to work. Um, what's the what's the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: probability that Murphy's law will happen and the flashlight will
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: be out? He plugged it in and came up with
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the one again. So he very facetiously proved that Murphy's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Law is real and his equation worked. I hope this
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: guy got stuck in a rainstorm a flashlight, That's what
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I hope. Poor Joel pell I had to um correspond
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: with him for this. Yeah, I did get permission to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: use his equation and he said, sure, here's a cool dude.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah really Yeah? All right, So, Chuck, we talked about
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: like prongs being designed with fail safe seat belts are
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a fail safe diesel pump nozzles there. They are designed
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: at a wider diameter than regular gas pumps, so you
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: can't fit it in your gas tank. Did you know that? Yeah?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: That wasn't always a case, because I put diesel in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a in a truck one time when I shouldn't have.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And when did it start? After Murphy's law became widespread
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: started in the mid nineties, I think, or that's the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: last time I screwed up like that? What you got? Uh?
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else? Thank God for fail Safe. So
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: thank god for John Paul Staff and Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I have a Chuck's key law. I got my two
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: house keys. I have a outer security like a clear
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: door and then my regular door. Two different keys that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: look the same. On my dog Leach will almost a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: hundred percent of the time I used the wrong key.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I'll bet if you paying attention to it, you use
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the wrong you about fifty percent at the time. That's
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Murphy's law. Well, then something's up. I also have my
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: directional thing. I have a port into direction almost dude,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it's awful. I didn't know that almost a hundred percent
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of the time I will go the wrong way if
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: faced with a choice, should I go this way or
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that way? And if I try to trick myself and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: go I want to go right, then I'm gonna go left.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It was right nice. That's Murphy's law too. I know
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: then it ruins my life. But you can't just hijack
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Murphy's law and slape your name on it. Those are
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Chuck's that's chuck ski law and Chuck's law of direction. Right,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: that's Murphy's law. All right. If you want to learn
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: more about Murphy's law and read my article on it.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: It was one of the first articles I wrote it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I like it. Um, you can type in Murphy's Law
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this one twice. Yeah, thanks
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: for doing it with me. Now, well it was it
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: was Do we were due for this one? Yeah? Um,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I think I said hand these first part, didn't I?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I think so? All right, Well that since it's time
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: for what we're gonna wind up the old Facebook asked
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Jock and Chush questions and people did so you always
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: get like a hundred of him in a couple of minutes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I have to shut it down. Yeah, people want to know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: all right, So let's just run through some of these. Josh,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you got one, go ahead, all right? Who's your favorite
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Simpsons character who was not a Simpson? Well? Cheers? And
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I even saw this one yesterday and I didn't it's
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: so hard. I like Lionel huts a lot. He was good. Um,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I like uh, I like the whole Flanders family. I
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: think Ned's a great complex character, like the one where
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: he has the nervous breakdown. Yeah, and it turns out
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he was part of a spanking protocol research study. I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: like it when he's occasionally ripped. Yes, well he is
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all the time because sometimes he's wearing a shirt. Well,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: clearly different when like when when he's in the ski
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: suit than when he's in his sweater. Yeah, that's most hilarious.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Stupid sexy Flanders. What about yours? I'm gonna go with
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a cop out. I'm gonna go with a pair with
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Ralphin and Chief Wigham. Yeah, they're good, pretty good. Or
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Smithers and Flanders. I mean that's those two that are
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: hard to beat as a as a duo. I mean
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: you can't leave out Seymour Skinner yeah boo yeah, or Barney.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: We can keep doing this for hours. Actually, I like
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: mo are you a mo fame? Yeah? Huge mo fame? Okay,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: all right, we could do this for hours. Go ahead, Uh, Chuck,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: do you have a job outside of the podcast? Um?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I do. I'm the chef and housekeeper. At my home.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I think I mean here. Oh no, do you not
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: since when? Oh? Well yeah, sure we write stuff? Yeah
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: right now, blog right quizzes? Do? Uh? We we manage Facebook?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Can Twitter? We managed the stuff? You should know? Brandon? Uh,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: what do you want written on your tombstone? I don't
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you go ahead? How about died tragically rescuing his family
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship. That is suspicion.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You're gonna say that. Yeah, that's a good one. Um.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Oh that was Kelly Cronly. I'm sorry, and Drew Clinkole
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: asked about The Simpsons. Thanks Drew and Kelly on my tombstone.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I want to say what? Uh this is from trash
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Goblin Toby? Is this from Twitter? I guess it is.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Have you seen Hodgeman's mustache in real life? And is
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it as scary as I have heard it is? We've
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: both seen Hodgman's mustache in real life. It accidentally brushed
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: my shoulder. I was like, like, how did that happen? Uh?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It is not scary. I think John wears it well. Yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and it's not an ironic mustache. He's grown his hair
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: out a little bit. He turned off hippie, hasn't it? Yeah,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. He's like, I like it. Uh,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: let's see it. Could it be? This is from How
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Awesome is Joe? A k A Joe on Twitter? Okay,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: could it actually be possible for human to be raised
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: by apes? Like Tarzan? I would say the answer is
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: undeniably yes. Yeah, And I'm gonna wind it up for
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: my last one with um something. People ask a lot
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: what does c O A mean? And that it's from
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Joseph Gubbles, do not explain it. That's a trick. He's
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: been trying to figure it out forever and if he
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: can't do it on his own, he has to figure
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it out on his own, Chuck, or else he's never
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: gonna learn. All right. Uh sorry Joseph, but that was
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a SmackDown. Um, what's our favorite episode? Chuck? Of what
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of stuff? You should know? I thought were on the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Simpson Oh man, I get asked this a lot I have.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: It's always different today. I'm gonna go with um Lobotomyes,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: it's a good one. Nothing, none of them. It's there's
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: just so many. I know, it's hard to choose. Like
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I'll look through occasionally in spot ones they're like, oh,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: how's it going. I don't think that because we're always
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: assets and always say the same like five things like
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: who lobotomy's body, farms, cannibalism, you know what. Um, I've
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: recently listened to what is the FDA regular herbs. I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: think I was telling you good and that is worth
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: listening to again. All Right, some people you know are
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: making their way through again. They've already made it through,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and they've made it through. They're making it through again
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the whole catalog. I'm looking at you. OMG, Chris, there's
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a name for people like that, Josh Massacus. Super fans,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yes, if you are a super family want
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: to hear from you always. We're pretty friendly guys, so
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: we'll say hi back usually. UM. If we don't, don't
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: take it personally, keep saying high a lot of them. Twitter. Uh,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: that's s y s K Podcast is our Twitter handle.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: We're on Facebook at facebook dot com slash stuff You
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: should know um and you can send us email like
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It's ready, are you