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!

Old friend

I met a guy in Vang Vieng (Laos) when I was travelling around the country. I am from Brazil and he is from Berrigan, Australia. On my last night there we went out for some drinks and we never spoke again after that day. Many months later I happened to be driving through a small town in Australia called Bermagui (population of 1500) and decided to stop there to buy something to eat at a supermarket. Just before entering the supermarket I noticed this man staring at me by the main door, and when I got closer I could recognize him! We both were very surprised, he was also driving by Bermagui (which is over 600 km away from his city) to spend some time in his summer house. To celebrate this odd encounter we ended up spending the night drinking and taking night pictures of the sky in a beach with his fancy camera.

small world

I grew up in a small town of about 20k people. 10 years later I met a man on a squatted farm in the countryside 30 Km outside of Barcelona. He was from a small village in Belgium, and living in Barcelona, but visiting this farm to learn to brew beer. I was visiting this farm as I traveled by, and only there for one day. After talking throughout the day, I told him the town I came from, and it turns out that he did an exchange student program and the same highschool I was attending, at the same time. We were different years and did not know eachother, but shared several mutual friends.

same day suicide

I have 2 sons each married to girls who have older half brothers. They all lived in different parts of the country. One day my eldest son phoned to tell me his wife's brother had been found dead in his car in his garage having died from the exhaust fumes. An hour later my youngest son phoned to tell me his wife's brother had hanged himself - all on the same day.

Looking for a book at Half Price books

It was Freud's Contribution to Psychiatry by A. A. Brill; I'd loaned my copy to a family member, who wanted to keep it. The clerk did searches in several categories without success. disappointed, I picked up my purse which I'd set on a pile of books in front of the computer. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, translated by A. A. Brill was right where I'd put my purse. Not exactly the book I was looking for but I bought it and read it. That was a lucky incident.

Not a chance its only chance.

A 9 years old girl in 1941 has written each of the times tables up to 10 on her Golden Rod tablet. She did that because she has to memorize them. Her dad, (with the best of intentions) insists she has to recite the multiplication tables through 10 before she can eat dinner. Its been a long trek and she hasn't succeeded yet. Each night her sisters and brother giggle while she haltingly begins; 1 x 1 = 1; 1 x 2 = 2; etc., attempting to get through to 10 x 10 = 100. Her dinner is delayed every evening. Looking at the paper a thought occurs into her mind: "Add the double numbers in each product, across." She seems to know what that means, 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16, 18, 20 becomes 2,4,6,8,1,3,5,7,9,2... The table of 3's: 3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24, 27 30 becomes 3,6,9,3,6,9,3,6,9,3... She sees that each times table has a hidden pattern that repeats and the table of 9's is extremely easy because each product sums to 9! But at a certain point right in the middle: 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90 the numbers twist around, 45 becomes 54, the numbers repeat but are reversed. That's nice, she thinks.

birthdate dd mn cc yy converts base 27 my rsrch Archim A=PI .Xsq.

Archimedes BC proposition 41~43 sphere cylinder show Area of Compass circle on sphere. A=PI Xsq. I look my birthdate 23031948. my habit ADZ = 1,4,26. base 27. I do article cover NZ new Zealand mathematics magaz method of Eudoxus. formula. A=PI ) CXC. my birthday and formula really match. then I discover car number license plate and my birthdate at friends house. PIU CAI. expiry 23032014. photo facebook.com/mcdonewt

ph num xxx-yyy in 2 towns my namesake.

received overseas call. is that McDonald? yes. Stuart? my middle name, yes. what number were you calling? 89-6820. yes. what town? Dunedin South Island. OOOh! this is ISD +644. Wellington new Zealand. apparently stuart is isd +643 the same number. verified both names and numbers are listed in respective directories. This was about 15 yrs ago and soon after 6-digit numbers were upgraded to 7-digits. wrong number likely consequence of directory assistance match stuart with don s. in different island. but few enquiries to 018. then call the number and someone actually answered and puzzled reason for call amazing figured out identity mixup. and common names. would only have this ending in a million calls. normally it may go to answer service or slam down receiver without understanding.

tmrw date attached to lottery numbers

Photo. Results of kenonz 20/80 lottery disp tvnz teletext abt 15-16 octob. Lucky nums are triangular nos. Draw date/time be switched to nxt day. So I bet 10/10 correct! Poor ticket print. Rod donald green die in office. Donald Stuart MacDonald. 1 letter mac than my name.

Neighbors with same named baby

In May of 2013, my family moved from Seattle to Chicago and set up in a Lincoln Square Condo Association. We discovered that our new neighbor, across the hall, had an infant with the same name as ours, Astrid (6 months). Although she was one month older we found this to be an incredible coincidence.

same name

When I was a graduate student at Stanford University in the mid 1970s, it was still common for schools to publish directories with the names of faculty, staff and students. One day, I idly opened mine and found and undergraduate with a rather uncommon (but familiar to me) name from my home town of New York City, across the country from Palo Alto. I gave him a call, and the conversation went like this: "Hello, is this Jeffrey Wachtel?" "Yes." "Did you attend Hunter College Elementary School in Manhattan?" "Yes." "Well this is Bruce Reznick and I was your classmate about 10 years ago." "No, sorry, you must have gone to school with the *other* Jeffrey Wachtel from HCES." The two, it turned out, were unrelated and the school, at the time, had no more than 200 students. [I realize you don't want to use full names, but they're hard to avoid in this case.]

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