The term "Finagle's law" is often associated with John W. Campbell Jr., the influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog).
The term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories (for example, Protector [Ballantine Books paperback edition, 4th printing, p. 23]), depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.
[3][4] Similar to Finagle's law is the verbless phrase of the German novelist Friedrich Theodor Vischer: "die Tücke des Objekts" (the perfidy of inanimate objects).
A related concept, the "Finagle factor", is an ad hoc multiplicative or additive term in an equation, which can be justified only by the fact that it gives more correct results.
[6] Arthur Bloch, in his book "Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong" (1977) stated variations on this:[7]