The Speculist

"If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way." [Murphy's Law] is most commonly formulated as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

The origins of Murphy's Law have become hazy over time. There's even been a bit of a feud over Murphy's Law between the parties that were present when it was coined. It is known that the law is named for Major Edward A. Murphy, Jr., a U.S. Air Force engineer, and that it was popularized by the "careful daredevil" John Paul Stapp.

You've probably never heard of either man. Murphy himself was a reliability engineer. So Murphy's Law is not pessimistic - it goes to the core of what reliability engineering is all about. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong - eventually...if done enough. The job of a reliability engineer is to remove, if possible, the opportunity for things to go wrong.

The other man, John Paul Stapp is a true unsung hero. Joseph Kittiger, the man who skydived from space (well, almost), called Stapp the "bravest man I ever met."

Before Stapp, it was generally thought that an 18 G crash was the most a pilot could survive. So there was little reason to engineer an aircraft to protect a pilot beyond that limit. Stapp, who was both a medical doctor and an engineer, did his own calculations and became convinced that a pilot , properly restrained, could survive a much harder crash. Perhaps twice as hard.

He proved he was right with his own body.

Stapp was the mastermind of the Air Force's Gee Whiz rocket sled project at Edwards Air Force Base. The Gee Whiz would rocket up to incredible speeds and then stop fast. Obviously it was critical to know the Gs the sled rider was pulling when braking. That's where Murphy came in.

Murphy developed sensors that could be wired three ways. One way would correctly show the G force on the sled as a positive number. The second way would incorrectly show the Gs as a negative number - incorrect, but usable. The third way would cancel out and register zero Gs. As you might guess, Murphy (or his technicians) wired the sensors up the third way. The mistake wasn't discovered until after a test. A distressed Murphy voiced some version of the law and Stapp ran with it. The law became famous after Stapp referenced it in a press conference.

Stapp was known for this type of wit. He often took random wisdom and coined humorous "laws." His "Sunshine Law" was "if the sun is shining over Edwards, there must be work to do." His "Ironical Paradox" was "the universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."

The real incredible miracle was that Stapp lived long enough to prove his G force theory. An early sled test ripped the face off what may have been the world's first crash test dummy, "Oscar Eightball." Chimpanzees were also used. But it was Stapp himself that performed the human tests, riding the sled over and over. He suffered multiple broken bones. As the forces increased his injuries became more bizarre. In one of his last rides the whites of his eyes were filled with blood and he was left with a permanent spot in his field of vision. He still holds the record for the most G force voluntarily endured.

The danger level grew with each passing test but Stapp was resolute... even after suffering some bad injuries. And within a few months, Stapp had not only subjected himself to 18 Gs, but to nearly 35. That was a stunning figure, one that would forever change the design of airplanes and pilot restraints.

...and automobiles and passenger restraints.

Improving automobile safety was something no one in the Air Force was interested in, but Stapp gradually made it his personal crusade. Each and every time he was interviewed about the Gee Whiz... he made sure to steer the conversation towards the less glamorous subject of auto safety and the need for seatbelts. Gradually Stapp began to make a difference. He invited auto makers and university researchers to view his experiments, and started a pioneering series of conferences. He even managed to stage, at Air Force expense, the first ever series of auto crash tests using dummies. When the Pentagon protested, Stapp sent them some statistics he’d managed to dig up. They showed that more Air Force pilots died each year in car wrecks than in plane crashes.

If driving were as dangerous today as it was in 1940, the United States would have over 100,000 highway deaths every year. Fortunately fewer than half that die (42,000 deaths in 2000). Stapp's seatbelt campaign can't get all the credit. Safer roads, collapsible steering columns, padded dashes, safety glass, crumple zones, DWI laws, and airbags are also part of the picture. But the three-point seat belt saves thousands of lives every year.

Stapp was recognized in his day. He was invited to be present when Lyndon Johnson signed the 1966 seatbelt law.

Colonel John Stapp died at age 89 in 1999.