Lay Down the Law Trivia Quiz

Answer: Murphy's Law

This seems to be such an ubiquitous observation that the exact origins cannot be perfectly traced. Nick Spark's book "A History of Murphy's Law" ascribes the name Murphy to an aerospace engineer named Edward A. Murphy. A corollary to this is Finagle's Law stating "Anything that can go wrong, will - at the worst possible moment."

Answer: Newton's Law

British mathematician and astronomer Isaac Newton proposed three laws of motion. These are considered to form the base for mechanics studies. The law quoted in the question is the third law of motion. Isaac Newton is also known for proposing the law of gravitation.

Answer: Walker Law

This law is named after US Senator James J. Walker. Passed in 1920, this resulted in the state of New York becoming the first US state to legalize the sport of boxing. It also laid down regulations for the sport. This code of conduct was mainly written by William Gavin, however, the law was sponsored by Walker and was hence named after him.

Answer: Parkinson's Law

Cyril Northcote Parkinson served in the British Civil Service and coined this adage in an essay for "The Economist" based on his work experience. This law perfectly fits various bureaucratic services in different parts of the world where multiple requirements seem to get developed with no seeming usefulness.

Another law proposed by Parkinson was the Law of Triviality - "The time spent on any agenda item will be in inverse proportion to the sum of money involved."

Answer: Gibson's Law

Gibson's Law pertains to the legal field largely and shows that both sides of a trial can have equal number of experts defending their point. This observation is also attributed to the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in the form of the statement 'For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert.'

Answer: Benford's Law

Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author. This law is better known as Benford's Law of Controversy and is taken from his novel "Timescape". It states that in the absence of sufficient facts on any particular matter, there is a greater scope for controversies based on differing perceptions.

Answer: Gay-Lussac's Law

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac was a French chemist. This is just one of the important laws in chemistry together known as the Gas Laws. Others were formulated by Robert Boyle, Jacques Charles and Amedeo Avogadro. One of the practical observations that validate Gay-Lussac's Law are the bursting of car tyres in hot weather as a result of the higher temperature increasing the pressure within the tyres.

Answer: Gresham's Law

This observation is taken from the field of economics. It was formally named by Scottish economist, Henry Dunning Macleod in 1860 after Sir Thomas Gresham, a financier who lived and worked during England's Tudor dynasty. However, Gresham was not the first to postulate this theory and evidence of this dates back to much earlier times.

In its simplest form, it means that if two commodities have the same face value, the one with a higher intrinsic or real value will become scarce, either due to hoarding or by being driven out to a place where its higher worth is recognized.

Answer: Pelé Law

The Pelé Law is named after the famous Brazilian footballer, Pelé, who sponsored it as the country's then Sports Minister. It was passed in 1998. The law laid down several regulations governing sports in Brazil. Among the various regulations were rules mandating professional sports clubs to observe business law and pay taxes. It also freed players from being tied to clubs for life.

Answer: Hubble's Law

Edwin Hubble was a well known astronomer who made breakthrough discoveries in cosmology. The law cited in the question is used to prove the expansion of our universe and also supports the Big Bang Theory. The Hubble Space Telescope, one of the largest telescopes launched into space, was named in honour of Edwin Hubble.