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!

Staten island

As a bizarre follow up to the previous bitstrips coincidence, the film is a true account of what happened to Gus Farace on 'Staten island', the same place the previous coincidence account happened!

Heartwarming bitstrips

I was using the facebook app 'bitstrips' which creates cartoons of myself and friends whilst watching 'In the line of duty:Mob Justice'. I had just read the bitstrip cartoon where it suggested I had sent a 'heartwarming video' when Ted Levine playing the DA commenting on the mob get-together said 'It's heartwarming'. 'Heartwarming' is not that common a word!

NYC subway, impossible coincidence

My sister lives in NYC (Staten Island) and I live in Newmarket (UK). I visited her one summer. We were to meet at the ferry terminal in lower Manhattan, after she finished work. She wasn’t sure the exact time so we had a 40 min. window for the rendezvous. As with the tube in London, on the NYC subway there are quite a few ways to get to a destination. I took an indirect route (as in got lost), and waited for a train I hadn’t planned on. I was still pretty far from lower Manhattan. I stood on the platform, the doors opened and my sister was standing right in front of me. There were no less than 3 different lines either of us could have been on. When the train pulled in to the station there were at least 20 cars, and each car had 3 sets of doors. So, same line, same car, same door, same time in a subway system used daily by over 4 million people.

3 sisters, same death date (2 same day)

Jan. 7th 1980 I got a call from one of my Dad’s cousins, who lived in another state. “Hi, this is Bob. I have some sad news for you and Aunt Lillie. My mother Dolly died this morning”. Dolly was 92. We briefly reminisced. He asked me to break it to my grandmother gently. I phoned my older brother Bob (everybody’s called Bob in my family) to ask him to help me with this. She took it hard and really cried. Grandma was very close to her sisters. About an hour later, I got another call. “Hi this is Bob, I have some sad news. Our Aunt Daisy just died.” (she had no children). Daisy was 93. “Wait” I said. “Which Bob is this? I think you have it wrong. It’s Aunt Dolly who died. Didn’t you call me earlier today?” He said he hadn’t and clarified which Bob he was. We realized that both of the sisters had died right about the same time that day. By now my dad (Bob) was home and he took on the difficult task of telling Grandma that Daisy had also died. You can imagine her grief. Yet she also took some comfort they had “gone together”, even though they were in different states and neither know of the other’s death. Jan.

alan arthur

i was in dentist this week . the receptionist said to me we also have another patient called alan arthur . he lives on military rd largs bay . i live on military rd west lakes shore . she also said his birthday is 14 august 1926 mine is 14 august 1954, what are the odds of that happening . thank you alan arthur

The Truck, the Date and the Brother-In-Law

Happened yesterday. Awhile back I set up a blind date for my brother-in-law, who is a truck driver, with a colleague. The one date they had fizzled and that was that. Two years later (yesterday) I was walking to lunch with the colleague-cum-date, and as we approached a zebra crossing we stopped to allow a truck to pass by. However the truck stopped for us - it was driven by no other than the brother-in-law! What are the odds for that? This happened in Israel, on a small side-road entering a kibbutz and a small industrial park. It's basically a dead-end road. There are about "The available figure for 2010 is 272 passenger cars per 1000 Israelis." - http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.PCAR.P3 Israel's population is about 8 million.

Car number plates

Driving home the other evening, I noticed that the car in front had a registration plate that differed from mine by a single letter, the difference being two alphabet places (AK10WXH and AK10WZH).

Same person, many coincidences

This guy I happened to meet by chance, at my friend's birthday! We have bumped into each other, so many times — at different locations, timings. I get to know that my co-worker's sister is his sister's best friend. Or his sister was also a client at one point, at a place I worked. There was one, when I simply thought of him, and the next thing I see is him walking towards me in the same lane. I happen to forget my tickets, wherein I had to go back to my work place. I get off at the next station, and find who? Him! Out of no where. I sit on a bus--bus halts, waiting for the signal to turn green. I am looking outside, fascinated by some random hotel logo on a roof, and when I look down, who do I see? Him walking out of a pizza joint! There have been many coincidences. But the person is just one!

A life saver

I play horn in an amateur orchestra, and usually meet with the conductor Before each term to plan the term activities. A couple of years back the conductor turned up on the Saturday morning as agreed, but instead of discussing orchestra plans he insisted on calling an ambulance. I had developed acute blood poisoning during the previous day or so and was not aware that I was seriously ill. I spent 11 weeks in hospital and 2 years in renal dialysis as a direct result of the blood poisoning. I am convinced that without the conductor's timely intervention I would not be writing this now. Being helped by a friend is hardly a coincidence in itself but the timing was exceptional - and from my perspective I hope it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Same time phone calls

I work in Uppsala, Sweden, and was in a research collaboration a number of years back with a professor in Göttingen, Germany. We hadn't spoken for a while, and I had some new results, so I called him one evening from the lab. I heard no ringing tone, but he was there at the other end of the line. He had called me at so exactly the same time that we were connected immediately and neither of our phones registered engaged.

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