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!

simultaneous events

I was reading something and someone else in the room say the same word exactly when i read it in my mind. On another day I was talking to someone and my brother was reading something, he said "what did you say?" and he showed me a word I said that was in something he was reading. This was a long time ago and I don't remember what the words were but they were not the same word. Two words on two different occasions. Two people phone each other at the same time.. that happened to me too. I was calling a friend whom i haven't talked to for a while, and as i searched through the contact name as i stood over her name and about to press call my phone rings and it is her.

what are the chances?

Fringe Festival season in Edinburgh. My friend A emails me to say a mutual friend, R, has had his house in central Edinburgh struck by lightning. His email title is "What are the chances?" So after sending a sympathetic email to R, I ponder on the improbability of lightning striking a medium height building in the middle of a city. I sleep a peaceful night and wake to iplayer on my iphone. Tune to Brian Cox's "Infinite Monkey Cage" but having already heard the latest episode I dozily click at random on an early episode. It's "Randomness, probability & chance" with guests Tim Minchin and Alex Bellos, saying how hard probability is for the layman to understand. Frequent jokes on the phrase "What are the chances of that?". Hmm...go downstairs for breakfast, idly pick up Saturday's Scotsman, glance at the Fringe reviews. First item is about a theatre piece "When it rains", about a mathematician having a run of bad luck, the tale explored in the light of probability theory. The closing sentence is - you've guessed it - "what are the chances of that?" V

feelings

Hi, I have always had feelings or instincts that tell me what is about to happen. I do not always feel this every single time, however when i do my feeling is always right. For example, i am a rower, and sometimes before a race, i will get this feeling that im going to win or lose this particular race. Or ill get a feeling that ill get an A in an exam. These instincts will always be right. I understand these could just be coincidences, but every single time they are right; this seems strange to me. Thanks for reading, Georgia

In reference to "Date of Birth"

The Odds to meet one with the same date of birth (day, month, year ) I would figure appr. 1:30000, but it differs according to which month one was born . In the Continental sphere significantly more people are born in July, Aug., Sept. than in the winter months...

Date of Birth

I have now met 2 people who share the same date of birth as me. Same day, month and year. One was born in the same hospital as me and I met him at the age of 35. The other I met in South Korea whilst teaching out there. I have contact with both people and earlier this year I was working here in the UK with one twin and teaching online in Korea for the other twin. What are the odds of this situation happening?

Living on the same street 20000km from our home town

Hi, I have migrated from Eastern Europe to Australia in the 90s after graduating from Uni. A few years after i settled in Sydney my Mum came to visit me for a few months stay. She told me about a lovely family she met on the train while visiting a neighboring country before coming to Sydney in order to obtain her Australian Tourist visa. The family were getting their permanent residence visa to migrate to Australia. During my Mother's visit I met by chance my new neighbors from the same background living one block away from my place. It turned out they are not only the lovely family my Mother met on train to the Australian Embassy but this was actually my Sociology Professor from my home town University. He has migrated to Sydney a few years after me and had settled down on the same street in the 4 million city of Sydney. What are the chances of that?... Of course we befriended the family and keep in touch to this day.

Ongoing, Frequent, Coincidental Occurances

These occur so often I have begun documenting~mostly a thought or image of a word, a person, an event and within hours, usually, that experience reappears in some form. Only this morning, I glanced at the phone, had a sense it would ring and who was calling and I was exact. Oddly, I was speaking of a missing hubcap to our camp trailer to someone....that night, someone had lost one, and it was in my front lawn the following morning. Same color as the missing one. On another evening, I was commenting to a family member how grateful I was she had found my missing black pair of pants. The next morning, I found someone's old pair of black pants lying in our driveway behind my car. Strong thoughts of an old friend and a vanilla perfume she had gifted me, we had not seen/spoken in almost 3 yrs. In the mail the following day, was an invitation from her to a social event. I sifted through an old collection of post cards/stationary, and came across one from the Madonna Inn in S. Ca-2 days later, a Trip Advisor notice appeared in my e-mail account featuring that destination for me to review to vacation. Joined 3 others to shop for 300 people for an annual dinner event.

3 Different Cities, Same Street Names

I just realized that I have lived at 3 different homes with nearly the same street names as an adult. 122 E Park Place 123 Parkway Drive 224 E Park Avenue It just seems a little too unusual to me. I kept wanting to call my current home on Park Ave. Park Place but didn't remember that I had actually lived on Park Place 25 years ago until just recently.

Ex- spouses dying in different states on the exact day

My husband had been estranged from his father for 17 yrs. Every year, I would check secretly to see if he was still around.This last saturday, I found on the computer that he had passed on may 15, 2013, in CA. My husband was upset and remorseful and mad. He had spent summers with his dad's then new wife and his dad when he was a teen. They divorced at some point. He asked me to try to find the ex-wife so he could see if she knew what had happened. Only to find that she died on the exact same day and year in MT. They were ten yrs apart and both died of heart attacks. Ofcourse, the probability of this is blowing his mind and he keeps asking himself what are the odds of any of this transpiring the way it has. Thank you for your consideration

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