Finagle's Law (n.)

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

. May have been first published by Francis P. Chisholm in his 1963 essay The Chisholm Effect, later reprinted in the classic anthology A Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening Gown: And Other Essays For A Scientific Eye (Robert Baker ed, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-852608-7). The label ‘Finagle's Law’ was popularized by SF 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. Some technical and scientific cultures (e.g., paleontologists) know it under the name Sod's Law; this usage may be more common in Great Britain. One variant favored among hackers is

The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum

; Niven specifically referred to this as O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law. See also Hanlon's Razor.