Cambridge Coincidences Collection

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

School Room Sequence

I entered school in first grade, in Room 3. Each year through sixth grade, my sequence of room numbers was 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18. There was no student who shared my room with me for more than 4 of the years, so I was the only student who fit the 3's sequence. When I went to Jr High for 7th grade, there was no room 21, but my homeroom was 210! I dont remember my high school homeroom number, beyond that it was B2??. But B240 doesnt seem right. I believe I used to lie to myself and say it was B240, but...

Flat mate a complete stranger - same great grandparent

I'm a white female from California. While in graduate school I moved into a shared flat with roommates I didn't know to save money. Everyone I met before I moved in was an Asian female, and that's who I expected to be living with. Before term started, some of the women moved out and a guy moved in. Now I was living with a 6'4" guy from New Jersey with a unibrow, the non-Asian husband of the only woman I hadn't yet met. (She was still traveling somewhere.) After a week or so I asked "John" who he played chess by mail with (the board was set up in the living room). He said his grandfather - and used the unusual name of my great grandfather. I asked him where his grandfather lived. He cited the town where my great grandfather lived. I asked him what his grandfather did. He was a Methodist minister, just like my great grandfather. His grandfather of course turned out to be the son of my great grandfather, hence we were cousins. I've never even been to this town in South Carolina where my great grandfather lived, but I met another descendent of his, completely at random, in San Francisco, and was sharing a flat with him.

The Scotts

My brothers name was Scott. My best friend for many years was Scott. He was friends with another Scott who I have been friends with for years. We met a guy who went by his middle name, Scott. Strangely enough none of them were allowed to go by Scott and were not referenced as Scott. It was Scotty, Pookie, D.Scott. I gave my daughter the middle name Scott just to honor the coincidence.

1001 Nights

I watched two television shows online that were originally aired on different dates. Both shows referenced 1001 Arabian nights. It is thought the protagonist in these tales is "fate" or "destiny" and in the end of each story destiny "disappears". I had separated from my wife a day before. Her name is Destiny.

Everyone That comes into my life has the same name.

I have this thing about me that seems to attract people with the same name to me consecutively. It has happened to throughout my life. Most of the people I meet have the same name. Growing up I had five best friends all called Carly, one after the other. The first three guy I dated when I was a teen where called Ben Then I dated or became close friends with seven daniels,Dans or Dannys. I have five friends named David, They all do the same job.I have met five peoplen named Paul, all of the pauls have been or are still in the armed forces. At the same time i seem to come into contact with all kinds of people that have these names at the time that particluar name is in play. The delivery triver will be called Paul, the man at the till, the waiter, the taxi driver,the man at the end of the customer service call, they will all be called Paul. One of the Pauls I dated didnt tell me he was married, when i found out it turned out that his wife had the same name as me, she did the same job as me, the looked like me and we had lots in common when we spoke.

Three wives - same birthday

My husband has had 3 significant relationships in his life 2 wives and one live-in girlfriend and we were all born on August 23rd (different years).

Unusual friend connection

For context, I grew up a super geek in Albuquerque, NM. At age 16 I discovered a new technology called a BBS, or Bulletin Board System, a predecessor to web based chat rooms. It was a direct modem dial chat and simple text game environment. This opened me up to a much wider social circle where I could nerd and geek out to my hearts desire with other people my age and adults that were also on the board. It was an excellent social environment, especially for someone like me who didn't fit easily into standard categories. I'm still friends with many of these people 22 years later, including having them as groomsmen in my wedding. My closest friends were a group of males of varying ages that had recently moved from Santa Fe to Albuquerque as three of the four were highschool chums that wanted a better job market post HS and the fourth was older, but had befriended the younger group through work. That older friend is Matt. He grew up in a small town in the mountains near Ft. Collins, CO, about an eight hour drive north of Albuquerque (500+ mi) but he hadn't lived there in nearly 8 years when I met him.

Winning run at the craps table

I graduated college in May of 2003 and attended Navy OCS August-Nov of the same year. Christmas of 2003 I was in Las Vegas, NV, at one of the casinos in the old downtown off Fremont Street. I was with family including my father, step-mother, step sister and her husband. My step-brother-in-law (lots of hyphens) goes on a "run" at a craps table. It's fairly late at night, perhaps after midnight, the casino was nearly empty, but when someone begins throwing winning rolls one after the other the universe can get really weird. I exaggerate and say that portals were opening from distant galaxies for aliens to get to this table with someone throwing wins, but it's a bizarre thing to see a table fill up in an empty casino. While raking in my modest but continuous winnings I notice the gentleman standing to my left is one of four members of my senior engineering capstone project design team from my last semester at college. This goes a long way in my hyperbolic telling of the tale, and is why I include portals and aliens.

OCS and family friends

I grew up in NM, very distant from extended family in Flint, MI. Shortly after graduating college I was entering Officer Candidate School for the Navy, having been enlisted and going to college. While speaking with my aunt in Flint, she mentioned that her best friend's son was also going to OCS. This friend of hers had been her maid of honor 30+ years before and was still in constant contact in Flint. When I reported to OCS he was in my class, and later also in my class and specific section of long term training over the next almost two years.

Same HS, Same nuke sub

While standing an "under instruction" (apprentice) watch as Officer of the Deck of a USN nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean, my over instruct and I talked about why we seemed familiar to each other. Short version: We were one year apart from the same high school out of New Mexico, a state that has about 1.5 million people in it and had been on the varsity track team together although we had competed in different areas (he was a distance runner, I was a shot/discus thrower). Additionally, his younger sister married my best friend's supervisor several years later. I'd known her for about four years without knowing that connection, and it came up when she mentioned that her brother was moving to my area for six months of training and needed a room to rent, reconnecting me again to this odd coincidence.

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