Yhprum's law is the opposite of Murphy's law. The simple formula of Yhprum's law is: "Everything that can work, will work." "Yhprum" is "Murphy" spelled in reverse. A more specific formulation of the law by

Richard Zeckhauser Richard Jay Zeckhauser (born 1940) is an American economist and the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He holds a BA (''summa cum laude'') and a PhD in economics from Harvard ...

, a professor of

political economy Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...

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, states: "Sometimes systems that should not work, work nevertheless." Resnick ''et al''. (2006) used this law to describe how intensive and seemingly

altruistic Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core asp ...

participation by giving ranking is observed in the

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feedback system. Jøsang, in a discussion of online trust management, suggests that all similar "trust and reputation systems" are manifestations of Yhprum's law. He states the law in a similar form to Zeckhauser: "Something that shouldn't work sometimes does work." Arenas ''et al.'' in a similar discussion add the adjunct "...or at least work fairly well" to the law.

Origin

Although Zeckhauser is often credited with coining, the first reference to Yhprum's law may have been by

Alan Abelson Alan Abelson (October 12, 1925 – May 9, 2013) was a veteran financial journalist, and longtime writer of the influential ''Up and Down Wall Street'' column in ''Barron's Magazine''. Career He was editor of Barron's from 1981 until 1992.

in the financial newspaper ''Barron's'' in December 1974. ''Barron's'' version of the law is more in the way of a corollary to Murphy's law than its opposite: "anything that should go wrong, won't". Abelson coined the term to describe the gloomy financial predictions of the time which he thought were wrong, or at least wildly exaggerated. In Abelson's opinion, a depression only occurs when the warning signs are missed or ignored. The very act of predicting one will ensure that it does not happen.Alan Abelson, "Up & down Wall Street", ''Barron's'' pp. 1, 27–28, 9 December 1974.

References

{{Reflist Adages Sociological theories