Murphy... Strikes.

Lowrey's Law If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Lowrey's Law of Expertise Just when you get really good at something, you don't need to do it any more.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology There's always one more bug.

Lubin's Law If another scientist thought your research was more important than his, he would drop what he is doing and do what you are doing.

Luce's Law No good deed goes unpunished.

Lucy's Law The alternative to getting old is depressing.

Luten's Laws 1. When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another week when your boss is away and you get twice as much done. 2. It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off the ground.

Lyall's Conjecture: If a computer cable has one end, then it has another.

Lyall's Fundamental Observation: The most important leg of a three legged stool is the one that's missing.

Lynch's Law: When the going gets tough, everybody leaves.

Lyon's Law of Hesitation: He who hesitates is last.

Madison's Question: If you have to travel on a Titanic, why not go first-class?

Rev. Mahaffy's Observation: There's no such thing as a large whiskey.

Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Corollaries:

1. The bigger the theory, the better.
2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory.

(Compensation Corollary)

Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

Malinowski's Law: Looking from far above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic.

Malloy's Maxim: The fact that monkeys have hands should give us pause.

The first Myth of Management It exists.

Truths of Management:

• 1. Think before you act; it's not your money.
• 2. All good management is the expression of one great idea.
• 3. No executive devotes effort to proving himself wrong.
• 4. Cash in must exceed cash out.
• 5. Management capability is always less than the organization actually needs.
• 6. Either an executive can do his job or he can't.
• 7. If sophisticated calculations are needed to justify an action, don't do it.
• 8. If you are doing something wrong, you will do it badly.
• 9. If you are attempting the impossible, you will fail.
• 10. The easiest way of making money is to stop losing it.

Truth 5.1 of Management: Organizations always have too many managers.

Manly's Maxim: Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Mark's mark: Love is a matter of chemistry; sex is a matter of physics.

Marshall's Generalized Iceberg Theorem: Seven-eighths of everything can't be seen.

Marshall's Universal Laws of Perpetual Perceptual Obfuscation:

1. Nobody perceives anything with total accuracy.
2. No two people perceive the same thing identically.
3. Few perceive what difference it makes -- or care.

Martha's Maxim (and see Olum's Observation and Farrow's Finding): If God had meant for us to travel tourist class, He would have made us narrower.

Dean Martin's Definition of Drunkenness: You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

Martin-Berthelot Principle: Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest amount of hot air.

Martin's Laws of Academia: 1. The faculty expands its activity to fit whatever space is available, so that more space is always required. 2. Faculty purchases of equipment and supplies always increase to match the funds available, so these funds are never adequate. 3. The professional quality of the faculty tends to be inversely proportional to the importance it attaches to space and equipment.

Martin's Law of Committees: All committee reports conclude that "it is not prudent to change the policy (or procedure, or organization, or whatever) at this time."

Martin's Exclusion: Committee reports dealing with wages, salaries, fringe benefits, facilities, computers, employee parking, libraries, coffee breaks, secretarial support, etc., always call for dramatic expenditure increases.

Martin's Law of Communication: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communication between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Martin's Minimax Maxim: Everyone knows that the name of the game is to let the other guy have all of the little tats and to keep all of the big tits for yourself.

Matsch's Law: It is better to have a horrible ending than to have horrors without end.

Matsch's Maxim: A fool in a high station is like a man on the top of a small mountain: everything appears small to him and he appears small to everybody.

Matz's warning: Beware of the physician who is great at getting out of trouble.

Maugham's Thought: Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

May's Law: The quality of the correlation is inversely proportional to the density of the control (the fewer the facts, the smoother the curves).

May's Mordant Maxim: A university is a place where men of principle outnumber men of honor.

McCarthy's Law: Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important.

McClaughry's Law of Public Policy: Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get re-elected; those who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement.

McClaughry's Law of Zoning: Where zoning is not needed, it will work perfectly; where it is desperately needed, it always breaks down.

McDonald's Second Law: Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and give it back to them.

McGoon's Law: The probability of winning is inversely proportional to the amount of the wager.

McGovern's Law: The longer the title, the less important the job.

McGurk's Law: Any improbable event which would create maximum confusion if it did occur, will occur.

McKenna's Law: When you are right, be logical. When you are wrong, be-fuddle.

McLaughlin's Law (and see Parson's Third Law): The length of any meeting is inversely proportional to the length of the agenda for that meeting.

McLean's Maxim: There are only two problems with people. One is that they don't think. The other is that they do.

McNaughton's Rule: Any argument worth making within the bureaucracy must be capable of being expressed in a simple declarative sentence that is obviously true once stated.

Margaret Mead's Law of Human Migration: At least fifty percent of the human race doesn't want their mother-in-law within walking distance.

Melcher's Law: In a bureaucracy, every routing slip will expand until it contains the maximum number of names that can be typed in a single vertical column.

H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who cannot -- teach. Those who cannot teach -- administrate. (Martin's Extension)

Mencken's Metalaw: For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong.

Merkin's Maxim: When in doubt, predict that the present trend will continue.

Merrill's First Corollary: There are no winners in life; only survivors.

Merrill's Second Corollary: In the highway of life, the average happening is of about as much true significance as a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

Meskimen's Laws:

1) When they want it bad (in a rush), they get it bad. 2) There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.

Michehl's Theorem: Less is more.

Pastore's Comment on Michehl's Theorem: Nothing is ultimate.

Mickelson's Law of Falling Objects: Any object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end.

Miller's Law: You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

Mills's Law of Transportation Logistics: The distance to the gate from which your flight departs is inversely proportional to the time remaining before the scheduled departure of the flight.

Corollaries (Woods): 1) This remains true even as you rush to catch the flight. 2) From this it follows that you are invariably rushing the wrong way.

MIST Law (Man In The Street): The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.

Mobil's Maxim: Bad regulation begets worse regulation.

Moer's Truism: The trouble with most jobs is the resemblance to being in a sled dog team. No one gets a change of scenery, except the lead dog.

Money Maxim: Money isn't everything. (It isn't plentiful, for instance.)

Montagu's Maxim: The idea is to die young as late as possible.

Morley's Conclusion: No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.

Morton's Law: If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer. ("What this country needs are some stronger white rats.")

Mosher's Law: It's better to retire too soon than too late.

Munnecke's Law: If you don't say it, they can't repeat it.

Murchison's Law of Money: Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good. But if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.

Nader's Law: The speed of exit of a civil servant is directly proportional to the quality of his service.

NASA Skylab Rule: Don't do it if you can't keep it up.

NASA Truisms:

1. Research is reading two books that have never been read in order to write a third that will never be read.

2. A consultant is an ordinary person a long way from home.

3. Statistics are a highly logical and precise method for saying a half-truth inaccurately.

Law of Nations:

In an underdeveloped country, don't drink the water; in a developed country, don't breathe the air.

Navy Law: If you can keep your head when all about you others are losing theirs, maybe you just don't understand the situation.

Evvie Nef's Law: There is a solution to every problem; the only difficulty is finding it.

Nessen's Law: Secret sources are more credible.

Newman's Law: Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse.

Newman's Observation: The first shall be last and the last shall be first. But if you're in the middle, you're stuck there.

Newton's Little-known Seventh Law: A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.

Nick the Greek's Law: All things considered, life is 9-to-5 against.

Nienberg's Law: Progress is made on alternate Fridays.

Nies's Law: The effort expended by the bureaucracy in defending any error is in direct proportion to the size of the error.

Ninety-ninety Rule of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Nixon's Rule: If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

Nobel Effect: There is no proposition, no matter how foolish, for which a dozen Nobel signatures cannot be collected. Furthermore, any such petition is guaranteed page-one treatment in the New York Times.

Noble's Law of Political Imagery: All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States.

Corollary:

Given a choice between two bald political candidates, the American people will vote for the less bald of the two.

North Carolina Equine Paradox: Vyarzerzomanimororsezassezanzerareorses?

No. 3 Pencil Principle:

Make it sufficiently difficult for people to do something, and most people will stop doing it. Corollary: If no one uses something, it isn't needed.

Nursing Mother Principle: Do not nurse a kid who wears braces.

Nyquist's Theory of Equilibrium: Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant professor; equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a male schlemiel.

Oaks's Unruly Laws for Lawmakers: 1. Law expands in proportion to the resources available for its enforcement. 2. Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed. 3. Social legislation cannot repeal physical laws.