I was in a meeting earlier this week when someone referred to “Murphy’s Law” when they really meant to say “Moore’s Law.” Perhaps it was a Freudian slip.

Intrigued by the possible connection, I posted a short message on Twitter, “Question of the day: How does Murphy’s law relate to Moore’s law?

Thanks to two fellow Twitterers who responded:

@benpash’s suggestion showed some promise: “Things can go wrong twice as often every ten years.”

But I think @mdcougar nailed it: “The intersection of Moore’s law and Murphy’s law means the number of things that go wrong will double every 18 months.

I tweeted in jest, and really expected this post to be a joke, but the last response makes sense. As the number of transistors increases (a result of Moore’s Law), system complexity rises, causing the the possible interactions among individual components to rise exponentially. The potential for failure rises as well.

But it is Saturday. Methinks I think too much. May Moore, not Murphy, be with you.

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