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!

TV coincidence.

Today (24.02.2015) I took and old TV set to my local recycling plant just outside a town called Gravesend. The set itself was an Hitachi all transistor colour set from around 1984. A typical 80's model with push buttons and having a cathode ray tube was quite heavy. </p> <p>When I got to the area for old TVs unusually there was only one other TV there meaning that there must have been a very recent cleanout. </p> <p>I was amazed to find that the other TV was exactly the same make and model which means the owner must have decided to throw it out on exactly the same day around the same time.

Parents door key works in my door

Reading coincidence 7954, I recalled the fact I discover my parents front door key works in my front door (but not the other way around). I discovered this by accident after they have purchased replacement windows and front door, but not yet had them fitted.

Karen

I was playing a new game of Words with Friends. I was given the usual random 7 letters and my name came together in order, KAREN. Unless the game is programmed to do that and I don't think it is, I found those odds of that happening pretty remote. I do have a screen shot somewhere. I have another to share. I was listening to oldies music one morning on a run when for the first time in 35 years I understood the lyrics to this one verse in the chorus of this song. That night out of the blue, my husband asks if I know what is being said in this particular song, the same song that I had just had this discovery 8 hours earlier! Music wasn't even on at the time. Why did he even remember to ask this on the very say I made the discovery?

coincidence or meaning

Hi, four year ago on the 12th of july my brother stanley died . When we were sorting out the funeral and going through his belongings with his wife we found my mothers death certificate and realised she also died on the 12th of july. We thought there was some meaning and consoled ourselves with that. About a week or so later myself and my natural sister were out at the graveyard where my aunties, uncles and grandparents are buried. All of a sudden while looking at my grandmothers gravestone and noticed the date which was also the 12th of july. So that was in the 40-50s my mother in the 90s and my brother in the 2000s, all on the 12th of july. I wonder if there was some meaning I should take solace from because I just can't believe it was coincidence.

Birthdays

This year, my birthday and those of my partner and sons are all on the same day of the week, even though the dates are spread throughout the year.

Vandal with same name as my daughter

My daughter is called Effie. Our garage is located in a lane some way away from our house in a long line of garages. The garage door was recently defaced with graffiti, and was the only garage door in the lane that this happened to. The vandal's tag was Effy. The bairn can hardly hold a crayon, I am pretty sure she is not the culprit.

All the women in my life...

My mother, my ex-wife and my wife all share a birthday - May 30 (different years of course). How spooky is that?

Mother Mary Tatoo

I am 53 years old & recently got Two Tattoos' . Maria ( After my wife ) & Mia ( After my Grand Daughter ). I am a great believer in the Mother Mary and have been researching images of her , for my next and final tattoo. I eventually found the image that i wanted and decided to ask friends that have had Tattoos , to recommend me a very good Tattoo artist . Three artists were recommend to me and i was considering visiting them in due course . Last Friday i was planning do my weekly shop after work in Morrison's , due to certain items that i particularly wanted from this supermarket . ( I always do my weekly shop on a Saturday , by the way) . As i left work and got in my car, i changed my mind & decided to go to Tesco's instead , which is in a completely different area but around the corner from a Tattoo shop, which was one of the three that was recommend to me . I parked up in the Tesco's car park & visited the Tattoo shop first . As i entered the shop, i was greeted by the receptionist .

A song for Caroline

My sister Caroline died a week ago. Since then I have been in daily contact with the husband who survives her, Digby. Yesterday he sent me an email explaining that he had found a piece of music that he intended to play at Caroline's funeral, and the story behind the choice. The music is the background to an advertisement for a building society, which he said had played regularly in recent weeks, and how it had grown to have a special meaning for the pair of them, while he was visiting her in hospital. I had never seen it. Then, last night, during a commercial break during Broadchurch, I was telling my wife that Dig had found a piece of music and handed her my iPad with the lyrics that he had sent me. The rest you can guess. As she handed my back the tablet and asked me what the music was like, on came the advert. A small coincidence, but one I like to believe (though of course I don't) has a deeper meaning.

3 Generations of women die.

3 Generations of women in one family die on November 29...but different years. My great grandmother, my grandmother and my mother. All died on November 29. All had health issues to some degree...all involving the heart and kidneys.

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