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!

Mathematically Linked Friends

I'm born on May 24. My friend is born on April 15. Our birthdays are 39 days apart. "39 is the smallest natural number which has three partitions into three parts which all give the same product when multiplied: {25, 8, 6}, {24, 10, 5}, {20, 15, 4}." The second group of numbers contains the numbers 5 (May) and 24. It also contains the number 10. 10 in Roman numerals is X. I have one X chromosome (XY). The third group of numbers contains the numbers 4 (April) and 15. It also contains the number 20. 20 in Roman numerals is XX. She has two X chromosomes (XX).

Boyfriends and birthdays

My very first boyfriend was born Feb 13th My ex-husband was born Feb 12th Short term boyfriend Feb 11th Recently met another potential boyfriend born on Feb 12th <---time to run. I don't date a lot, so this is getting ridiculous. This is all random people I like and then find out their birthdays later.

Four members of the same family died in the same day and month of different years

This is regarding my mother´s family tree, relatives - Two uncles have died in the same day, April 4th, 2012, Mauro Hiroaki Arai and Roberto Oriondo Dias, one in Parana state, another in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. In the next year, the husband of another relative in Parana had died too, April 4th, 2013. And yesterday, April 4th, 2015, Pedro Denshiti Nogawa (son of Kinoe Nogawa, former Arai when single) died too. It is 4 persons in the Arai family who died in the exact same day and month of different years... a strange coincidence... Now we are wondering to know who will be next, in April 4th, 2016...

birthday saxophone

today i bouhgt a yamaha saxophone, one of tenthousands. The serialnumber is 041162, my birthday, 4th of november 1962, dutch notation. I live in Holland bought the saxophone in Belgium. What are the odds??

Creepy Family Death Date x 3

my daughters dad died on 4-5-10 his brother and only sibling died on 4-5-05 their grandmother on their mom side died on 4-5-00 todays date is 4-2-15 ....needless to say i am feeling uneasy about the upcoming 4-5-15. does this mean anything or is it simply coincidence?

Wolf dog and wild boers

At times, I take the principle "everything is connected with everything" (mutual interconnectedness ) LITERALLY... ... On hearing the news of the catastrophe of the Germanwings plain on the 25th March I soon tried to figure out what I was doing at the moment when the plain disappeared from the radar-screen on the 24th, 10:53. I found that almost exactly this was the time when I was sending an email to a married couple in Schwitzerland. A link, no text. Title: "Wolf dog and wild boers" (As an avarege I send 5 emails - a week...) I could not establish any imaginative or mystical link between this and that horrible catastrophe. (Apart from an interesting connection perhaps. This couple travelled on the 22th from Berlin to Zurich - by train. On asking them on the 21st, why they decided to use the train instead of flying - what, to my knowledge, thay had always done - they had given me an evasive answer. My hunch was/is: out of fear of a terrorist attack. ) I was sending them my "Wolf dog and wild boers" (without text )in the moments of a terroristic act. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W68nogo8vk

workmates birthdays

My husband and I took a travelling job doing a marketing promotion and a third guy was hired who also traveled with us. As a team we answered to 2 people in the office. Essentially we were a team of five and there wasn't anyone else from our company directly involved in our project. My husband, our travelling co-worker and the Account executive share the same birthday. I share a birthday with the account executive. Also coincidentally I stumbled on your site today. ...my husband's birthday.

uncanny patterns

I found 11 four leaf clovers from couple of different places in a span of 3 months between December 2011 to April 2012, of which one was gifted.

Parallel lives

I met an English guy at a friends party in 2008 - he was 30 years old, it was just a one off and i never met him ever again, i had added him on fb and i deleted him in 2012. In 2014 i went to England for a holiday after i got back from England - between Aug 2014 and Nov 2014, i booked myself in for a speed dating event and when i went to the event i met this English guy as one of the dates after 6 years and this time i was nearly 30. My friends Chatri (birthdate 6th September) and Emily (birthdate 4th June) got married on the 21st June 2014 in Australia. My friend Ankush (birthdate 8th September) and Hazel (birthdate unsure sometime in first two weeks of june) got married on the 12th July 2014 in Scotland. I went to both weddings. However, both couples uploaded their wedding pictures on fb on the same day as they tagged me on some photos that was few months later after their wedding (sometime in October 2014).

Parallel lives

My mum has 3 kids and her sister (my aunty) has 3 kids - on the 4th March 1981 my mum was giving birth to my brother (her 2nd child), while it was my aunty's wedding day. My brother got married on the 3rd Feb 2014 and my aunty's daughter (who is the 2nd child too) got married on the same day. My first boyfriend's birthdate was 11th Feb, my best friend's first boyfriend's birthdate was 12th feb. Then my best friend met her current husband in America whose birthdate was 19th March. I went to Australia and met my 2nd boyfriend whose birthdate was 18th March. When i was going out with my 3rd boyfriend he was in touch with his ex girlfriend in Canada, similarly my best friend;s husband's ex gf lived in Canada and he was in touch with her at the same time. My first boyfriend Indian (India 2005) was born on the 11th Feb and my last boyfriend Australian (Australia 2011) was born on the 21st Feb - they both cheated on their ex girlfriend to be with me and both the ex girlfriends got in touch with me on the mobile phone and i became good friends with them and i left both my first and last boyfriends and asked them to go back to their ex girlfriend.

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