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!

Moon and sun

I'm sure this has been posted before but if not I'm very interested in the probability that 3 celestial bodies (sun, moon and earth) can form apparently near perfect eclipses. Is there a astronomical reason for this and if not what are the chances? What are the chances that you are inundated with seemingly random events after going onto BBC - high. Thanks Mark

Just weird stuff.

I am able to record coincidences in my day. They are extremely frequent and have no reason or purpose yet they happen anyways. A few short ones are I was driving behind a corvette with a DARE license place. He was driving like an asshole so I noticed it because I was paying attention. Later that night I was having a conversation with my friend and he mentioned the DARE program as a joke. Kinda odd. The other night I had a thought to myself about how when I was a child I was really afraid of letting balloons go in the air. We did these events where we let balloons go with cards at the end and I was afraid to let mine go because they'd never come back. Mine came back. I still have the post card they sent me. The next day I had gone to the Dollar Tree to get 12,000 staples from my store. Idiots keep shooting them at each other. While checking out I notice a lady blowing up balloons and don't pay much attention to them. I get to my store and as I leave for my first delivery of the day I see a single red balloon float across the sky. I was once having myself a nice country drive and passed a house I like because of their super bright orange Mustang.

Broken glasses

in our sixth form common room I playfully lobbed a ball at the back of our Head Girl's head. Unfortunately she turned around and the ball knocked off her glasses - breaking them.<br /> About a month later I was entering the Gym for a. PE lesson when I saw a loose rugby ball. I just kicked it and it went about ten yards along the ground before jumping up into the face of our Head Boy - knocking off his glasses and breaking them. Thus in the space of a month I inadvertently broke both the Head Girl and the Head Boys' glasses. This happened in 1967 and I still recall it as very strange<br />

coincidence or deeper meaning??

its funny you should have a picture of a clock at 12:34 as this is my recurring coincidence. for sum time now is seems that when ever i look at my phone clock watch for the time its always at for example 22:22 or 12:34 and so on. whats most bizarre about this to me is the fact that i dont need to know the time when i look its just something that i do, not because i have an appointment or have to be somewhere just because at that moment in time i feel the urge to know the time and almost everytime its as i call it perfect time i.e 12:34,00:00,11:11 and so on.

Finding a J M W Turner artwork

In Sept 2013, my wife and I spent a weekend in Stamford, Lincolnshire. We were following a self-guided tour of the town's Georgian history which stopped right outside the door to our lodgings, an old coaching inn on the High Street. Apparently, Turner himself had visited Stamford in the 1830s and had painted a watercolour of the stage coach arriving at this very inn. I was intrigued and spent the evening trying to find a picture of the artwork on the internet but with no luck. The next day we left for home in Cheshire via a very circuitous and almost random route. We spent the morning in Oakham. Then I decided I would like to drive north along Ermine Street, the old Roman road. Late afternoon and we were in the vicinity of Lincoln. My wife suggested we visit the cathedral. I drove directly into town using the cathedral as a visual target and as we got nearer, looking for a parking space, I made a number of turns, left, right, left, right and conveniently entered a largely empty car park just below the cathedral. The car park was next to the Usher Art Gallery. It was quiet so we popped in for a quick look round.

Career Paths

In 1974 there were three engineers working for the Electricity Supply authority in Zambia (Zesco), one in the Commercial department, one was Chief Draughtsman and I was Senior Planning Engineer. Our careers took very different paths but in 1982 the three of us met up again. We were all working in what was then North Yemen and each of us was a Resident Engineer, one in Sana'a, the Capital and the other two of us in the other main towns of Taiz and Hodeidah.

Two Holes in One a month apart, same hole, same course

Last summer, playing golf with three friends on a course several miles away, my game was of normal average quality (I am a 80-year old amateur who has only played since retirement). At tee no. 8 (130 yard hole) I took a 5 iron and made a better than average drive. To general amazement the ball reached the green and disappeared down the hole. The first hole in one that I have ever achieved! Exactly one month later, the same four people discussed where to play and decided on the same course. There was a lot of ribbing of me at hole 8, along the lines of - well, come on let's see you do a repeat; not a chance, presumably. So, with low expectations I take the same number 5 club and tee off. Again we see the ball climb up the slight rise onto the green - and again the ball disappears. When we get to the green, there is the ball in the hole! What are the odds on this?

bank pin numbers

After meeting my brother I had not seen for a few years. We went for a drink and both stopped at the cash machine he noticed that our pin numbers were same. Both of us were with the same bank and neither of us had changed the random generated number from the bank. What are the odds of brothers both getting the same number from the same bank with accounts set up in completely different cities?

surgical coincedence

At age 37 I attended a hospital in a town 40 miles from my local hospital, it is a minor hospital in the town, as there are 4 NHS hospitals in total there. I was there to receive a transplant kidney, my father was there to donate the kidney, to our surprise my boss, who lives in the same town as my father and I, was sat in the waiting room awaiting surgery for a serious condition from which he has now recovered, despite not being the only people awaiting surgery, I was first on the surgical list, my boss was second and my father was third.

Three generations of maternal uncles each born exactly 31 years apart

I was born on Feb 21st, the same birthday as my mum's brother, when he was 31. My sister's son was born on the same day, when my uncle was 62, and I was 31. Thus my nephew, his maternal uncle (me) and my maternal uncle all share the same birthday, separated by 31 years.

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