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!

Met the one who signed my Visa

I am an Indian citizen and I applied for a visa to Colombia in June 2008 at the Colombian Embassy, New Delhi, India. I filled out the relevant forms given by the Embassy and submitted them along with my passport. I picked up the passport next day. I did not have to give an interview nor did I meet anyone in the Embassy. Few months into my stay in Bogota, Colombia (I was there on a year and a half long teaching program) I went for a Diwali (Indian festival) dinner/gathering in the Oct or Nov 2008. I smiled at a girl who was dressed in Indian attire but was of Colombian nationality (she could have passed off as a someone from North of India and I did get confused initially). We made acquaintance and I found out that the reason she had an Indian attire and was at an Indian gathering was because she lived in India for almost 8 months. Upon enquiring as to the city where she stayed at, she said it was New Delhi. Further conversation revealed that she worked in the Colombian Embassy and one of her profiles included whetting Visa papers and signing approved visas. She said that my visa would have her signature.

The make up lottery ticket win

This is not mine but something I read that didn't get enough attention to it paid in the newspapers. Maybe about 10 years ago, but it could even have been 20, but less than 30 there was a family or person in the Bronx that bet the same numbers every week on the New York State lottery. And one week they won. Except they hadn't bought a ticket that week. Well, they picked themselves up where they were left and continued buying. 8 weeks later they won. yes, with the exact same numbers they always used. Yes the exact same numbers won again, eight weeks apart, and this time they had a ticket. Only the winning prize was considerably less. I can't find it, although I did find a ase of acouple actually winning twice with the same 6 numbers, once in December, 1996 and teh second time on August 18, 2007.

Assassination in Sarajevo

The multiple instances of errors & confusion that led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914, any one of which could have prevented the murder that ignited World War I, seem invented for a fictional plot too full of coincidental misadventures to be taken seriously. Mike Dash relates for Smithsonian: “The archduke was heir to the throne of the tottering Austro-Hungarian empire; his killers—a motley band of amateurish students—were Serbian nationalists (or possibly Yugoslav nationalists; historians remain divided on the topic) who wanted to turn Austrian-controlled Bosnia into a part of a new Slav state. The guns and bombs they used to kill the archduke, meanwhile, were supplied by the infamous ‘Colonel Apis,’ head of Serbian military intelligence. All of this was quite enough to provoke Austria-Hungary into declaring war on Serbia, after which, with the awful inevitability that A.J.P.

Uncanny political events

On July 4th, 1826, after reconciling through correspondence their longtime acrimonious political differences, John Adams, second president of the United States, & Thomas Jefferson, who had been Adams’s vice president prior to ascending to the presidency, died on the day they’d both contributed to making Independence Day. On Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 1884, Teddy Roosevelt’s mother & wife died on the same day. Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22nd, 1963, continuing a pattern since 1840 of every president elected in the 20-year intervals since then dying in office, many commentators remarked on the curious similarities shared with Abraham Lincoln’s presidency (from Snopes.com), to which others have added spurious anecdotes to the legend: Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846; John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860; John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both were shot in the head.

Do we bring luck to football team?

Or this – Do we really bring good luck to a football team? On a Saturday last November, Nora & I were invited to watch the UW Cowboys play their final football game of the season, defeating the UNLV Rebels 35-28. This was the fifth time in the past four years we've been welcomed to watch from either the Wildcatter luxury suites or the Skybox. Twice this year we attended a game. Each time we were guests, so we had no choice in which game we could attend. Thus, the games were random selections & independent events. All five times we witnessed the Cowboys victorious. The Cowboys only won two games this year; we saw both. We’re not fans of football; we didn’t care one way or the other if the Cowboys won or lost, accepting the complimentary tickets more for the free food bowl than the football contest. To figure the probability of this happening for five consecutive games, take the Cowboys’ winning percentage for each season for each game & multiply the five values together. In 2012 UW had a 4-8 record, in 2013 5-7, in 2014 4-8, & this year 2-10. Therefore, 0.333 x 0.417 x 0.333 x 0.167 x 0.167 = 0.00129 or slightly more than one in 1,000 times.

Fortuitous acquaintanceship with woman I'd marry

After reading a paragraph from Russian author Ludmila Ulitskaya’s novel, The Big Green Tent, in Lenoid Bershidsky’s book review in The Atlantic, I was reminded of my own first acquaintance with the young woman who became my wife. It’s fascinating to trace the trajectories of people destined to meet. Sometimes such encounters happen without any special effort of fate, without elaborate convolutions of plot, following the natural course of events—say, people live in adjacent buildings, or go to the same school; they get to know each other at college or at work. In other cases, something unexpected is called for: train schedules out of whack, a minor misfortune orchestrated on high, like a small fire or a leaky pipe on an upper floor, or a ticket bought from someone else for the last movie show. Or else a chance meeting, when a watcher is standing in one spot, on the lookout for a target, and suddenly a girl glides by out of nowhere, once, twice, a third time.

Man seeks to find me after my brief appearance on radio about composting

Five years ago when I began thermophilic composting, depositing all of our organic waste into a compost pile in the backyard, I called Ira Flatow during his Science Friday program on NPR to report my project related to his theme of conservation of resources on college campuses. Though I only occasionally have time to listen to the noon broadcast on Fridays, my call was the first answered. Ira didn’t seem particularly keen on discussing with me my description of recycling all of the urine & feces (no flushing of purified water down toilets into the sewer) along with kitchen leavings from food preparation, leaves, grass clippings to produce humanure for my gardens. Nevertheless, Dave Earnshaw in Laramie who was listening took immediate interest. Dave also composts thermophilically. Occasionally tuning in to the show, but not religiously, Dave assumed that I was a faculty member at UW (but at the time I was only an instructor for LCCC); all he knew was my first name from the broadcast. He searched & contacted every Patrick listed in the UW directory in a futile attempt to get in touch with me. A few years passed.

Unexpected book gift contains letter to author

In 1979, shortly before I wed my wife of nearly 35 years, after reading one of John Simon’s columns in Esquire, I wrote to the eminent critic of the arts. Without mentioning me by name – “A much more sophisticated letter comes from a teacher in Yuma, Arizona, yet it, too, profoundly disturbs me” – he quoted a paragraph from my epistle in a later column before verbally ripping it to shreds. Unaware of my having corresponded with John Simon or the Esquire column, in December 1980 my wife’s older sister (whom I had met but once by then) & her husband sent me a book, Paradigms Lost by John Simon, as a Christmas present, which included the same piece that had been published in Esquire.

Forgotten letter to PLAYBOY appears unexpectedly

A more prosaic example occurred when I was a senior in Prof Quick’s Modern Grammar course at Arizona State University in the spring of 1972. For an oral presentation to the class, I decided on rude expletives. At the time, most dictionaries did not include entries for so-called “four-letter words.” Early in the semester in preparation, I wrote to Henry Bosley Woolf, then the editor-in-chief of Webster’s Dictionary, requesting the etymology of “fuck.” He personally wrote back – the letter alone impressed my professor – giving me the principal information I lacked. A few years later, after listening to a friend tell me that Playboy had an item on the origin of “fuck’ as an acronym of “for unlawful carnal knowledge” placed on stocks for public humiliation of fornicators, I related my deeper knowledge; he suggested that I write to Playboy, so I did. Hearing nothing back from the magazine, I forgot about the letter I’d written until months later in December while teaching in a high school in Phoenix one of my male students entered class by announcing: “Mr Ivers, your letter’s in Playboy!”

Estimated Taxes Are Exact

In 2012 after completing my federal-tax return, I calculated the amount I’d need to pay each quarter in estimated federal income taxes for 2013. When completing my federal-tax return for that year, the amount I owed was exactly the same as each of those estimated payments.

Pages