If it can go wrong, it will--thus Murphy's Law. Science journalist EdwardTenner looks more closely at this eternal verity, named after a U.S. AirForce captain who, during a test of rocket-sled deceleration, noticed thatcritical gauges had been improperly set and concluded, "If there's more thanone way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, thensomebody will do it that way." Tenner concurs, and he gives us myriad casestudies of how technological fixes often create bigger problems than theones they were meant to solve in the first place. Edward Tenner, formerexecutive editor for physical science and history at Princeton UniversityPress, holds a visiting research appointment in the Department of Geologicaland Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He received the A.B. fromPrinceton and the Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago and hasheld visiting research positions at Rutgers University and the Institute forAdvanced Study