Principles of Operations Research. 3. The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics

This is the third of a set of articles on principles of operations research. As the reader will note, these are somewhat different from similarly titled subjects in the usual textbooks. This principle has had many other names—for example, I've heard it called Murphy's Law. We may specialize the principle for our purposes as follows: OR projects will be more difficult than you think; they will take longer, cost more, and the final solution will be less satisfactory.