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Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended
objective Objective may refer to: * Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope * ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film * Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object * Objective Productions, a Brit ...
, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One person might consider a failure what another person considers a success, particularly in cases of direct
competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
or a
zero-sum game Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is e ...
. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation. It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
s, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.


In American history

Cultural historian
Scott Sandage Scott A. Sandage is a cultural historian at Carnegie Mellon University. He is best known as the author of ''Born Losers: A History of Failure in America'', which was selected as an "Editor's Choice" book by ''Atlantic Monthly'', and was awarded the ...
argues that the concept of failure underwent a metamorphosis in the United States over the course of the 19th century. Initially, Sandage notes, financial failure, or
bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
, was understood as an event in a person's life: an occurrence, not a character trait. The notion of a person ''being'' a failure, Sandage argues, is a relative historical novelty: " t until the eve of the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
did Americans commonly label an
insolvent In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company (debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet inso ...
man 'a failure'". Accordingly, the notion of failure acquired both moralistic and
individualistic Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
connotations. By the late 19th century, to be a failure was to have a deficient character.


In business

Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to
fracture Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...
of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of
forensic engineering Forensic engineering has been defined as ''"the investigation of failures - ranging from serviceability to catastrophic - which may lead to legal activity, including both civil and criminal".'' It includes the investigation of materials, product ...
. A commercial failure is a
product Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...
or company that does not reach expectations of success. Most of the items listed below had high expectations, significant financial investments, and/or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations", there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop". * For flops in computer and video gaming, see
list of commercial failures in computer and video gaming The list of commercial failures in video games includes any video game software on any platform, and any video game console hardware, of all time. As a hit-driven business, the great majority of the video game industry's software releases have bee ...
* For company failures related to the 1997–2001
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
, see
dot-com company A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level domain ". ...
*
Box-office bomb A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
Sometimes, commercial failures can receive a
cult following A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
, with the initial lack of commercial success even lending a cachet of subcultural coolness.


In education

A failing grade is a mark or grade given to a student to indicate that they did not pass an assignment or a class. Grades may be given as numbers, letters or other symbols. By the year 1884,
Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...
was evaluating students' performance on a 100-point or
percentage In mathematics, a percentage (from la, per centum, "by a hundred") is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. It is often denoted using the percent sign, "%", although the abbreviations "pct.", "pct" and sometimes "pc" are also us ...
scale and then summarizing those numerical grades by assigning letter grades to numerical ranges. Mount Holyoke assigned letter grades ''A'' through ''E,'' with ''E'' indicating lower than 75% performance and designating failure. The ''A''–''E'' system spread to
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
by 1890. In 1898, Mount Holyoke adjusted the grading system, adding an ''F'' grade for failing (and adjusting the ranges corresponding to the other letters). The practice of letter grades spread more broadly in the first decades of the 20th century. By the 1930s, the letter ''E'' was dropped from the system, for unclear reasons.


In marketing

Marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
researchers have distinguished between outcome and process failures. An outcome failure is a failure to obtain a good or service at all; a process failure is a failure to receive the good or service in an appropriate or preferable way. Thus, a person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an outcome failure if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A process failure occurs, by contrast, when, although the activity is completed successfully, the customer still perceives the way in which the activity is conducted to be below an expected standard or benchmark. Wan and Chan note that outcome and process failures are associated with different kinds of detrimental effects to the consumer. They observe that " outcome failure involves a loss of economic resources (i.e., money, time) and a process failure involves a loss of social resources (i.e., social esteem)".


In philosophy

Philosophers in the analytic tradition have suggested that failure is connected to the notion of an omission. In
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
, omissions are distinguished from acts: acts involve an agent doing something; omissions involve an agent's not doing something. Both actions and omissions may be morally significant. The classic example of a morally significant omission is one's failure to rescue someone in dire need of assistance. It may seem that one is morally blameworthy for failing to rescue in such a case. Patricia G. Smith notes that there are two ways one can not do something: consciously or unconsciously. A conscious omission is intentional, whereas an unconscious omission may be
negligent Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...
, but is not intentional. Accordingly, Smith suggests, we ought to understand failure as involving a situation in which it is reasonable to expect a person to do something, but they do not do it—regardless of whether they intend to do it or not. Randolph Clarke, commenting on Smith's work, suggests that " at makes failure to act an omission is the applicable
norm Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...
". In other words, a failure to act becomes morally significant when a norm demands that some action be taken, and it is not taken.


In science

Scientific hypotheses can be said to fail when they lead to predictions that do not match the results found in
experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...
s. Alternatively, experiments can be regarded as failures when they do not provide helpful information about nature. However, the standards of what constitutes failure are not clear-cut. For example, the
Michelson–Morley experiment The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to detect the existence of the luminiferous aether, a supposed medium permeating space that was thought to be the carrier of light waves. The experiment was performed between April and July 1887 ...
became the "most famous failed experiment in history" because it did not detect the motion of the Earth through the
luminiferous aether Luminiferous aether or ether ("luminiferous", meaning "light-bearing") was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space (a vacuum), so ...
as had been expected. This failure to confirm the presence of the aether would later provide support for
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two Postulates of ...
. ''Wired'' magazine editor Kevin Kelly explains that a great deal can be learned from things going wrong unexpectedly, and that part of science's success comes from keeping blunders "small, manageable, constant, and trackable". He uses the example of engineers and programmers who push systems to their limits, breaking them to learn about them. Kelly also warns against creating a culture (e.g., school system) that punishes failure harshly, because this inhibits a creative process, and risks teaching people not to communicate important failures with others (e.g.,
null results In science, a null result is a result without the expected content: that is, the proposed result is absent. It is an experimental outcome which does not show an otherwise expected effect. This does not imply a result of zero or nothing, simply a res ...
). Failure can also be used productively, for instance to find identify ambiguous cases that warrant further interpretation. When studying biases in machine learning, for instance, failure can be seen as a "''cybernetic rupture'' where pre-existing biases and structural flaws make themselves known".


Internet memes

During the early 2000s, the term ''fail'' began to be used as an
interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
in the context of
Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
s. The interjection ''fail'' and the superlative form ''epic fail'' expressed derision and ridicule for mistakes deemed "eminently mockable". According to linguist
Ben Zimmer Benjamin Zimmer (born 1971) is an American linguist, lexicographer, and language commentator. He is a language columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal'' and contributing editor for ''The Atlantic''. He was formerly a language columnist for ''The ...
, the most probable origin of this usage is ''
Blazing Star ''Blazing Star'' is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Yumekobo and published by SNK in 1998 for the Neo Geo arcade and home systems. It is a follow-up to '' Pulstar'' (1995) and features side-scrolling action similar to its predecessor an ...
'' (1998), a Japanese video game whose game over message was translated into English as "You fail it". The comedy website ''
Fail Blog Fail Blog (stylized as FAIL Blog) is a comedic blog website created in January 2008. FAIL Blog features disastrous mishaps and general stupidity in photos and video which have captions such as "fail", "epic fail", "X Fail", or "X; You're doin' it ...
'', launched in January 2008, featured photos and videos captioned with "fail" and its variations. The #fail
hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
is used on the microblogging site
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
to indicate contempt or displeasure, and the image that formerly accompanied the message that the site was overloaded is referred to as the "
fail whale Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
". The term " miserable failure" has also been popularized as a result of a widely known " Google bombing", which caused
Google search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The ...
es for the term to turn up the White House biography of
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
.


See also

*
Catastrophic failure A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many oth ...
*
Cascading failure A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts leads to the failure of other parts, growing progressively as a result of positive feedback. This can occur when a single part fails, i ...
*
Disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...
*
Error An error (from the Latin ''error'', meaning "wandering") is an action which is inaccurate or incorrect. In some usages, an error is synonymous with a mistake. The etymology derives from the Latin term 'errare', meaning 'to stray'. In statistics ...
*
Fail-safe In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safe ...
*
Failure analysis Failure analysis is the process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure, often with the goal of determining corrective actions or liability. According to Bloch and Geitner, ”machinery failures reveal a reaction chain o ...
*
Failure mode Failure causes are defects in design, process, quality, or part application, which are the underlying cause of a failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure. Where failure depends on the user of the product or process, then human er ...
*
Failure rate Failure rate is the frequency with which an engineered system or component fails, expressed in failures per unit of time. It is usually denoted by the Greek letter λ (lambda) and is often used in reliability engineering. The failure rate of a ...
*
Governance failure A governance failure refers to any failures of governance or ineffectiveness of governance processes. General Jessop argues for conceiving governance as a provider of flexibility for decision-making structures opposed to rigid state bureaucracy o ...
*
Market failure In neoclassical economics, market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto efficient, often leading to a net loss of economic value. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where indiv ...
* Murphy's law *
Normal accidents ''Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies'' is a 1984 book by Yale sociologist Charles Perrow, which provides a detailed analysis of complex systems from a sociological perspective. It was the first to "propose a framework for charac ...
*
Setting up to fail Setting up to fail is a phrase denoting a no-win situation designed in such a way that the person in the situation cannot succeed at the task which they have been assigned. It is considered a form of workplace bullying. There are also situation ...
*
Single point of failure A single point of failure (SPOF) is a part of a system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. SPOFs are undesirable in any system with a goal of high availability or reliability, be it a business practice, software appl ...
*
Structural failure Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed structural load (weight, force, etc.) without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to ...
* System accident


References

Other sources * *


Further reading

* Perrow, Charles. ''Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies''. New York: Basic Books, 1983. Paperback reprint, Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
, 1999.


External links


Designing Building Failures
* .
Association for the Study of Failure
from Japan {{Authority control Maintenance Reliability engineering