Term or phrase describing action occuring when not watching

Question

I am an IT professional. More specifically in automation. I am looking for a term or phrase that describes the event when either:

a. you are watching something closely and the issue doesn't occur

or

b. you are not watching something at all and the issue does occur

I always called these kinds of situations The Dancing Frog. Every time someone tries to show you the bug, it wont occur. As soon as you leave the room, it occurs for the user almost immediately. — Doc, Jan 29 '14 at 14:38
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the word "quantum". This would sort of be anti-quantum: the event only occurs (exists) when you don't look for it. — , Jan 29 '14 at 16:32
Some of used to call this call a POM effect, or POM dependent effect. POM is an acronym for Phase Of Moon. "Yeah, just check the value every time, the default is POM dependent." — MetaEd, Feb 04 '14 at 21:49

FumbleFingers · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-29T00:38:17.853

27

A watched pot never boils
Something you are waiting for will not happen while you are concentrating on it.

For a single-word adjective, consider stealth. Particularly during the last government, we Brits got used to usages like stealth taxes, where the general idea is you never actually see the money going.

edited Jan 29 '14 at 00:38

answered Jan 28 '14 at 20:53

FumbleFingers

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I would rate this up also because it fits the description but my reputation won't allow it! Thanks FumbleFingers. – chonerman Jan 28 '14 at 20:56
@Soylent: You had plenty of time! I spent several minutes after typing the above, but before clicking on Post your Answer, looking for some mention of a suitable single word describing a "non-observable event". It seems to be a common enough concept in the world of theoretical physics, but either they haven't found/coined a term yet, or my eagle eye just wasn't focussing properly. – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '14 at 21:37
@FumbleFingers: Further than the phrase you came up with it goes to show that setting up an experiment to watch things behave naturally is a contradiction in terms! As much of a double bind as "Be spontaneous!" – user58319 Jan 29 '14 at 07:24
2

@user58319: Indeed. Much of the leading edge stuff coming from theoretical physics these days seems to me to suggest that the religious perspective (which I'll crudely reduce to "Man exists in order to interact with God's universe") is being replaced by a more "solipsist" perspective (again, crudely, "Our universe exists because we observe it"). But the universe is like a shy bride on her wedding night not wanting to leave the light on - when we try to look at the details, it's too dark to see. (Or reality turns out to have yet another layer of underwear! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '14 at 13:52
I don't think "A watched pot never boils" really works here. That idiom refers more to expected events: the pot is on the hob, the hob is switched on; we know it will boil eventually but it never seems to while we're watching it. But, here, we're talking about an unexpected event: to stretch the metaphor, the user claims that the pot sometimes boils spontaneously when not on the hob but it never does while we're watching it. – David Richerby Jan 29 '14 at 16:06
@FumbleFingers "the universe is like a shy bride on her wedding night..." I might have to use that line. – p.s.w.g Jan 29 '14 at 16:47
@p.s.w.g: Feel free - fill your boots (so long as you credit me as the original author! :). I only just came up with that metaphor as I was typing the comment, but for the past 20 years I've been telling anyone who'll listen that true nature of reality is something like a "universal computer/simulator" playing cows and bulls with the human mind[s]. With the one crucial difference that the computer/code holder is always free to change the "secret word" to anything that doesn't invalidate any previous answers (again, idea copyright me! :). – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '14 at 17:18
@FumbleFingers Of course, I'll make sure you get full credit :) – p.s.w.g Jan 29 '14 at 17:53
@p.s.w.g: In the same general area, I'm very taken with David Deutsch's use of the word "fungible", and I always credit him with that one (even though I think I was first!). At some point in the past when we had no way of knowing whether the earth really was supported on the back of a giant turtle, it could actually have been true (providing the physicists can come up with a rational explanation as to why the turtle isn't there now! :). Objects (and world-views) may be interchangeable so long as they function the same to everyone outside them. – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '14 at 18:35
...let's not forget there are claimed to be millions of US Xtian fundamentalists who believe god planted all those dinosaur bones when he made the earth 6000 years ago. – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '14 at 18:37

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 28 '14 at 20:35

23

The common catch-all term is Murphy's Law. In IT context specifically, there's the more specific term Heisenbug.

answered Jan 28 '14 at 20:35

RegDwigнt

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I'd say Murphy's Law means anything that could feasibly go wrong will definitely occur, whereas OP's context is something that's definitely known to happen out in the field, but doesn't manifest in a controlled environment. +1 for Heisenbug though - not previously known to me, but I sure could have used that term many times in the past! – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '14 at 20:57
@FumbleFingers Sounds a bit more like Sod's law to me. – WS2 Jan 28 '14 at 21:09
1

@WS2: Indeed - but so far as I'm concerned, *Sod's Law* is the British equivalent of *Murphy's Law*. Wikipedia claims that the latter is a subset of the former, but I think that's just tosh - it's just that Americans like the Irish connotations of Murphy's Law more (plus they don't use sod so much in other contexts). – FumbleFingers Jan 28 '14 at 21:28
@FumbleFingers WS2 what you are both thinking of is actually Finagle's Law. – AJMansfield Jan 29 '14 at 01:48
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I, personally, prefer Cole's Law – Jim Jan 29 '14 at 03:13
@Jim +1 for the worst pun on this thread ... congratulations. – le-doude Jan 29 '14 at 05:33
@AJMansfield I'm afraid you will never shift us from Sod's Law, it is part of our national liturgy! – WS2 Jan 29 '14 at 11:37

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 28 '14 at 22:14

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Heisenbug is a good term if this happens software, but if you're looking at something more mechanical, you might say that this is (or is the result of) a gremlin.

answered Jan 28 '14 at 22:14

p.s.w.g

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 05:38

The simple term for any bug that only happens when it feels like happening is "intermittent".

If you can prove that the act of observing or not observing really does affect whether it happens, it's time to investigate things like timing dependencies, threadsafety, and so on. I have indeed heard "Heisenbug" used in the past to refer to this class of problems, but at best it's a jargonish description of a broad class of bugs with symptoms that are similar in this one way.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 00:55

0

The expression playing hide and seek seems to fit your context.

answered Jan 29 '14 at 00:55

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 07:10

0

We IT people are often being "Microshafted" by software events that elude logic. In the real world however I refer to such an event as elusive.

answered Jan 29 '14 at 07:10

Roy

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score -1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 04 '14 at 21:16

-1

How does "non-deterministic" sound?

answered Feb 04 '14 at 21:16

Lummo

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Non-deterministic is completely orthogonal to whether or not anybody's watching. It merely means that it is not the programmer but the program itself (or a particular algorithm in it) that decides, at runtime, how it wishes to behave. The programmer is free to watch the program at any and all times, and his doing or not doing so has no effect. – RegDwigнt Feb 05 '14 at 10:31

score -2 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 29 '14 at 11:47

-2

Will the expression "Unobserved event" suffice?

answered Jan 29 '14 at 11:47

David

1

Term or phrase describing action occuring when not watching

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