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!

Girlfriend in newspaper

When I was 17 I lived in Wakefield, RI, USA. I drove a newspaper delivery van for a summer job. One day on the job I was talking obsessively to my assistant (Ron) about a girl I had been dating that summer. We had stopped in front of a store. Ron, exasperated, handed me a loose newspaper and said, "Relax. Read the paper. I'll handle this delivery. When I get back, I don't want to hear another word about her!" After he left to deliver the bundle of papers to the store, I absent-mindedly opened the newspaper to the first page of the "B" section (state and local news) and there she was, staring up at me, from a rather large photo (at least 1/8 page).

Date coincidence(s)

I seem to often attract coincidences, and friends often simply comment that it's typical of me. For example I share my own birthday with my son, my cousin's son, a very close friend's son, another close friend's mother, a great nephew, etc. I am no longer surprised to learn of yet another birthday on 10/10. However, the coincidence I am particularly wanting to share is that my first husband died on 25 September 1995 and my second husband died on 25 September 2014, 19 years apart. My second husband had a terminal illness and we spoke about the possibility. He said 'Well, I'll try and avoid it, but if I don't it'll be spooky, won't it?' Well, by the time he passed, I had resigned myself to what felt like the likelihood that it would be that day. Spooky? Not really, but definitely intriguing.

Birth Date/Death coincidence

My aunt died today August 7th 2015 at 95 years old on the 15th birth day of my son today 8/07/2015. This is mind boggling to me. There has to be a meaning to it. Since my aunt has been on her death bed for days. Every one thought She was not going to make it the next day. or the next, or the next. She hang on and expired on my son's birth day. I just wish l can understanding this coincidence?

Colin MacDonald

I first worked overseas at the ripe old age of 32, spending a week on a drilling rig offshore from the Danish city of Esbjerg. 3 months later my twin brother also worked overseas for the first time, planting trees outside Esbjerg. We both live in northern Scotland which has no particular links to Denmark, especially a fairly minor town of 70,000 people. Neither of were looking for work in Denmark at the time, we were sent there by our respective employers.

Birth/Death Date Coincidences

Over the years I have often thought, hmmm, isn't that weird: so and so was born the same day so and so died. It wasn't until I started documenting the actual dates, that I realized how many in my family there are. These are not the same years, but same month and date. My mother's boyfriend & my sister-in-law share the same birthday My grandmother died the same day two of her great-grandchildren were born My father-in-law died the same day my uncle was born My grandson was born the same day my stepbrother died The fact that there are 365 days in which these events could have occurred, yet they occurred on the same date certainly makes one wonder about the significance.

Photo of home town York appears on karaoke machine in Arctic Circle when friend sings Finnish song!

My girlfriend & I are currently on holiday in Finland visiting her parents (my girlfriend is Finnish). Over the weekend we took a 1500KM round trip North to visit a friend in Rovaniemi (the "official home of Santa" & boarder of the Arctic Circle). Last night we went to a karaoke bar in the city. We could not believe what we saw when the lyrics to the Finnish song our friend sang appeared on a large screen with a background photo of my home town in England, York! I guess these karaoke machines are fairly standardized and this photo (a popular tourist shot taken from the City walls looking towards York Minster) probably appears on many such machines but it was still very bizarre!

Birthday coincidence

I am in a sketch comedy group with four other people that has been active for several years, and throughout that time we have joked about titling one of our shows "A Death in the Family" due to the streak of tragedies in our lives: my mother's suicide, another's father's murder, the accidental slaying of a third's close friend, the childhood loss of yet a fourth's brothed, and a pair of difficult prognoses that will hopefully be disproven but bode ill for the parents of the last. Here's the kicker: I have the same birthday as the brother; the last has the same birthday as the father, and the third has the same birthday as her friend.

Mexicans

In 2012 I was in The Cavern in Liverpool and met a 2 young Mexican couples who were travelling Europe. A week later I was saw them again at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Repeating Series of Numbers

For the past couple of years, two number sequences having been appearing quite frequently: 911 and 917 on my clocks and watch. The former is obvious, the latter is the month and day of my birth. I don't know enough about numerology to accept its answers, but my first response would be it's not credible. The situation clearly does not seem to be a coincidence, so what is it?

Cheap sneakers

I was just commenting on Facebook upon a story about a girl who got beat up for 'wearing the wrong trainers' and remarked that I was once laughed at for wearing trainers that were not one of the top brands by my neighbour. Mine were cheaper and outlasted his. Then Billy Joel came on TV and sang 'You get more milelage from a cheap pair of sneakers'.....!

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