The Knecht Effect

The Knecht Effect describes the statistical certainty that, if one has many possessions, at least one will always be in a state of disrepair. In other words -- something always needs fixing. The underlying math is simple, being based on expansion of the binomial (a + b)^n, where "a" represents the probability of something being in good working order, "b" is the probability of it needing to be fixed (note that a + b = 1.0), and "n" is the number of possessions one owns.

(named after the research psychologist, William R. Knecht (pronounced like "connect"), who first noted the phenomenon)

As I got older, I became a victim of the Knecht Effect. I owned so much stuff that at least one thing was always broken, and I was spending half my life getting stuff fixed.

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