Murphy's Law mathematized!

...AND, the universe is aggravating 70% of the time...

[bedlam]

[news.com.au ]

... a panel of experts has provided the statistical rule for predicting the law of "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" - or ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))

... five factors have to be assessed: urgency (U), complexity (C), importance (I), skill (S) and frequency (F), and each given a score between one and nine. A sixth, aggravation (A), was set at 0.7 by the experts ...

I can't help feeling that, since the experts took the decision to go public, the published equation must be wrong...

-B

[vkaryl]

Well yes.... aggravation isn't weighted heavy enough at all, for one thing! *laughing*

[bedlam]

Y'know, I thought 70% sounded low...

-B

[vkaryl]

Based on 56+ years of dealing with the universe and its aggravations, I estimate (personal experience only here, not weighting it at all for unsubstantiated reports from the world at large) the percentage to be well OVER 300%. And if you simply input the percentage of Compaq/HP aggravations alone, even averaged over the course of the logical lifetime of the machines divided by the number of users multiplied by the number of tech-support calls, you've got to increase THAT percentage a large number of points....

[Um. I am by NO MEANS known as a blinding flash/deafening report when it comes to math. HOWEVER, I have an INTIMATE knowledge of Murphy's Law and its incontrovertible place in the universe. Murphy wasn't a woman, though, I'll have you know!]