Don't miss this one -- it's the law!!!

Charlie in Dayton

Rabid radioactive stargazer and JREF kid
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
1,086
Excerpted from:
mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
Issue Number 2003-09
September, 2003
(and mildly edited for some emphases by Charlie in Dayton)
(for further information, go to http://www.improbable.com)


----------------------------------------------------------
2003-09-11 Ig Nobel -- Tickets, Delegations, Webcast

Here's how to attend and/or see the 13th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Sanders Theatre on Thursday evening, October 2,
2003.

TICKETS: Harvard Box Office (617-496-2222)
Open noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays.
<http://140.247.118.196/tickets/details.cfm?EVENT_ID=2029>

AUDIENCE DELEGATIONS: If you have a group you want
officially recognized as an official Delegation,
be aware that the registration deadline for this
is Thursday, Sept. 25. See
<http://www.improbable.com/ig/2003/2003-details.html#delegations>.

INTERNET TELECAST: The live telecast will begin
at 7:30 PM (Boston time), at <http://www.improbable.com>


DETAILS are at
<http://www.improbable.com/ig/2003/2003-details.html>.


----------------------------------------------------------
2003-09-12 Murphy Incarnate

Most people think the "Murphy" in Murphy's Law is apocryphal. Most
people are wrong. Murphy's Law was named after Captain Edward A.
Murphy, Jr., whose utterance in 1949 gave rise to the naming of
the Law.

Murphy's son, Edward A. Murphy III, will deliver the keynote
address at this year's Ig Nobel Prize ceremony on October 2, at
Harvard.


Two days later, on October 4, at MIT, he will give one of this
year's Ig Informal Lectures. At the Lectures, Mr. Murphy will
display some of his father's engineering tools -- including
Murphy's slide rule! -- and also show a four-minute videotape in
which his father describes Murphy's Law.

BACKGROUND READING MATERIAL: For background reading on the true-
life, genuinely head-rattling historical saga/soap opera that was
the birth of Murphy's Law, you can read Nick Spark's adventure-
packed historical-detection article, which is being published in
AIR 9-5, and which we will post on the AIR web site
(www.improbable.com), in four juicy parts, which will appear on
September 15, 17, 22, and 24.
Nick Spark, too, will appear at the
Ig Informal Lectures at MIT.


----------------------------------------------------------

Stock up on the popcorn (extra butter on mine, thanks) and the root beer. You do NOT want to miss this one...

...gotta check and see if this will be available on cd video later...
 
As I recall from a book I have laying around the house somewhere, Murphy was fitting some wiring for medical transducers on Col. John Stapp's rocket sled during research for jet plane ejection seats. The wiring harness had been produced at the AeroMedical Labs at Wright-Patterson AFB here in Dayton, and some of the connections were incorrect. Referring to the tech back here in Dayton, Murphy mumbled something like "If there's a way to get it wrong, he will...". Later, during a press conference, the phrase was jazzed up just a touch, and handed to the world that now knows the phrase "If anything can go wrong, it will" as Murphy's Law.

They're all here...

A short history.
 
Stapp was quite a character himself. Human crash test dummy and car seat belt advocate. One of those people whose work affects everyone and of whom noone has heard.
 
Just a bump to bring it back to the top. Remember, this Thursday evening, 730PM Eastern time. Be there or be square!
 

Back
Top Bottom