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!

A face in the crowd.

I was watching the 1988 convention, and the nominee for vice president was introduced: Dan Quayle from my home state. His face was large on the screen, a face I'd not seen yet but at a glance I saw an amazing similarity to my daughter's ex-boy friend, they could be brothers. The camera shifted to the crowd suddenly, to a person in the enormous crowd, the former boyfriend I'd just thought 'looked like' Dan Quayle. He wore the hat of a representative and I later asked if he'd been in the crowd. He was the face in the crowd, that one face that I'd just thought about.

Dialed wrong number got right person

Professor: Sir, Back in 1986 (or 1987) I dialed what I thought was my Aunt Jean's telephone number in Lakehurst, New Jersey 657-6710 (or something like that) only to have a woman answer the telephone who (not surprisingly to me) sounded exactly like my Aunt Jean. It was her friend who sounded remarkably like my Aunt Jean. The woman who answered the telephone said my name "Tommy" and continued with, '...I'll get her for you.' OK, so a woman who sounded like Aunt Jean answered Aunt Jean's telephone, or so I thought. Aunt Jean got on the line and asked me how I knew to get her at her friend's house. I had no idea that I had jumbled up the last four numbers of her telephone number and got it horribly wrong, but she was there - at a weekly prayer meeting! I asked my Aunt Jean if she had the 'call forwarding' feature, but she insisted that she did not and that she was at her friend's house. So, I dialed the wrong number (quite by accident) and got the right person on the day of the week where they met for prayer. The houses alternated each week, I believe.

Tracing a man, tracing a Picture

I am researching a miniature portrait ca. 1797 (mother and child) done in Edinburgh, the lady having a connection to South Carolina - but also to an Australian descendent and beyond. A book published in Melbourne in 1978 carries a photograph of a portrait of man, the lady’s husband, recording this portrait in the possession of the late John Grigg who died in 2001 and whose papers sold by Quaritch in 2002 are at the Bodleian and also at the collection in Sydney that I am going to study in October. The ODNB entry for Grigg gives, surprisingly, his last address in Blackheath So I write to the author of the book (a Professor in Canberra, apparently still active there) to ask if he remembers the picture and his research at that time. Subsidiarily I also dropped an e:mail to my friend Neil Rhind who lives in Blackheath and publishes on local history (and master-minded my election as a Fellow of the Antiquaries in 2012) in case he might know the widow and gain me an entrée. So I received overnight a response from the Australian Professor - that as it happens he is on a visit to London and the portrait I am asking about is hanging on the stairs below ...

Freud was haunted by certain numbers.

LETTERS FROM FREUD TO Jung (From Memories, Dreams and Reflections) Vienna. IX, Berggasse 19 April 16, 1909 ......"Now I shall exercise the privilege of my years to turn loquacious and tell you about one more matter between heaven and earth which cannot be understood. A few years ago I took it into my head that I would die between the ages of 61 and 62, which at that time seemed to leave me a decent period of grace. (Today that leaves me only eight years still to go.) Shortly afterward I made a trip to Greece with my brother, and it was absolutely uncanny to see how the number 61 or 6o in conjunction with 1 and 2, kept cropping up on anything that had a number, especially on vehicles. I conscientiously noted down these occasions. By the time we came to Athens, I was feeling depressed. At our hotel we were assigned rooms on the second floor. and I hoped I could breathe again-at least there could be no chance of No. 61. However, it turned out that my room was No.31 (which with fatalistic license, I regarded as after all half of 61-62). This wilier and nimbler figure proved to be even better at dogging me than the first.

Uncle passing

I received a call one morning. The call was from my mother. She told me my uncle had passed away suddenly during the early hours. Later that morning, I decided to go into work and was driving along an open road most of the way. On approaching a small village I came to a roundabout. A blue car had right of way at the roundabout. As I followed it, I noticed its registration plate ended NEC. My uncle's favourite football team was Everton. He was a diehard fan, who never missed a home game. Their shirt colour is blue. One of their shirt sponsors during the eighties was NEC.

Number coincidence

Sir, I am getting the number 42 frequently every time. 1.Story: As when a I am studing 10th class my result is 542 and In intermidiate 1st year my result is 442 and 2 nd year result is 943 mostly near. 2.When I see the time it is 10:42 and another time it is 12:42 and many times the time has the number 42. 3.When I see my bike number it cointains number 42. 4.As my exam hallticket number cointains the number 42.

Driving the other person crazy

2005 Driving the Other Person Crazy incident<br /> </p><br /> <p>I had just read a book that mentioned an essay, Driving The Other Person Crazy by a Harold Searles, and decided to read the essay. A search on the Internet revealed it was in a book, Collected Papers and Essays on Schizophrenia by Harold Searles, and the lowest price was 89.00 so I put it out of my mind.<br /> </p><br /> <p>A short time later I was in Borders Books, waiting to check out when I noticed a rack of books marked '75%' off, so I went over to the rack. Laying on top of the top shelf of books was "Essays on Schizophrenia" by Harold Searles, marked down 75%. I bought it and read the entire book. The chapter on 'Driving the other person crazy' was helpful information I needed to know to understand a certain situation in my life.<br /> </p><br /> <p>Mr.

The Compton-Fermi incident

A few months ago (2003) I was at work. My mind was on my work when 'thought words' occurred into my mind: Arthur C. Compton. The name: "Arthur C. Compton" spontaneously emerged into my thought, for no reason. Immediately I stopped what I was doing then entered the name into the Search window. I did a search on the Internet for 'Arthur C. Compton' and got a link to a web document! It was a letter written in 1942. The document was labeled "Letter: Arthur C. Compton to Enrico Fermi, September 14, 1942." It was a copy of a letter to Enrico Fermi letter from 'Arthur C. Compton'. I read the letter through. Then I realized the name Arthur C. Compton was incorrect. It occurred to me at that point that the correct name of the man in my mind was 'Arthur H. Compton', not 'Arthur C. Compton. Quite clearly I remembered that it was not Arthur C. Compton I'd read about in a newspaper story in 1989, it was Arthur H. Compton, Arthur Holly Compton was a quantum physicist.

wallet according to planned parenthood

[url=http://www.gsme.co.uk]Paul Smith UK[/url],Most likely your audience will never hear about your stealth mode product and watch for its launch. If individuals are coming to your site, show them the genuine article and not a text box to include their email address to the wait list. As expected, the strongest celebrations of the global generation have come from the advertisers and marketers of children and youth consumer culture who don tire of speaking about the size of the Indian youth market calling upon global corporations to some country with a population of youngsters twice the size of the entire population of the us. [3] Calling them, the of liberalization, Arvind Singhal, chairman of the retail consulting firm KSA Technopak extolled the virtues of the new generation, who, according to him, were to global trends through TV and the Internet and not spendingaverse as the previous generation.,[url=http://www.bengco.co.uk/category/michael-kors-handbags-outlet]Michael Kors Handbags Outlet[/url] This may have been the case, the judge deemed him worthy of death, and that was the way it was going to stay no matter what the people in gerneral thought.

Scrabble Coincidence (No I in TEAM!)

There was an all company meeting at work recently and as I sat down for the talk noticed that a scrabble set had been left out on one of the tables where somebody had been playing previously. I took 7 letters out and as I laid them on the green holder they spelt out TEAMI. I stopped at that point to tell everyone about this bizarre coincidence. There were two letters left over, but I hadn't got as far as putting them down, before showing everyone this!

Pages