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!

AVAST ye

Whilst relating an incident with my antivirus program AVAST which had blocked a DLL on the computer without reason I was explaining what had happened to my partner. The TV was playing the remake 'The day the earth stood still' and Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson was uttering the phrase '...a vast....' in mid sentence just as I was relating the problem with the antivirus program AVAST!

a.Nonymous

I am Scottish but have lived in England for many years. My daughter who is English lives in New Zealand with her partner. He did the round the world bit in his twenties and spent time in Edinburgh and London where he met my daughter. He has a child from a relationship with a girl whom he met in Scotland. She moved to New Zealand, met and married another man, a few years ago. Her parents travelled from UK for the wedding and met my daughter. She told me about the wedding and spoke about the parents being from Scotland. It turned out that the parents were old friends of mine - in fact he was best man at my first wedding.

Cz230s

Whilst reading an ebay description of a malfunctioning casio cz230s,and watching 'Watchmen' on tv, the description on ebay noted that ' some switch configurations produce silence'. At that exact moment the tv soundtrack of the movie played 'the sound of silence' by simon and garfunkel!

meeting someone who knew my Dad's family

I work and live in the south west of England but myself and a colleague (originally from Scotland) were seconded to India. Whilst we were there, her parents came to visit. Her Dad - who I hadn't previously realised was English - had a familiar accent. It turned out he grew up in the same South East England town as my dad - they'd lived about 100m apart.

Coincidence 666

just wanted to add that I happened to switch on 'Star Gazing' when they were tasting Ardbeg whisky - the whisky i had bought out of a theme of coincidence. I noted they were saving money or something as they had not got the actual space whisky, marketed as the space whisky, there again this one sold as the space whisky wasn't the drink used in the official space station experiments, anyway?

Lizzy Hill

Further to the coincidences I posted regarding the number 666, I was again drawn back to the place where the coincidence began, when someone said they grew up near there, through a poem on whisky. It mentioned ~Ardbeg which is the name of a whisky distillery and the name of the road where I lived. I heard the poem on whiskies around the same time I was thinking of the place i lived where my connections with the number 666 began due to noting that street on a map on the wall in Marble Arch, ran into the road where the person grew up near. When I bought the bottle of whisky Ardbeg name of road nearby I was interested to see that the 12 year old whisky vat was bottled in 2012 though had 1999 on the label, i was wondering if this was pertaining to their commercial van the Beastie? it was a space whisky so you can turn upside down in space?? or whether production and bottling were separate?

Identical twins who's partners were each born on same day as our parents died and share same first name initial

YyMy now husband Shane, was born 28th May, the same day my father Steve died...both names start with 'S'. My twin sisters fiance, Paul was born on 26th March, the same day our Mum Pamela died..both names beginning with 'P'. Both Months starting with 'M'... March and May. Mum died day after my dad's birthday on 26th March. Dad was born on 27th March. Mum was born 1st May. Hey...strange... Has anyone else out there got the same crazy coincidence? :)

3 birthdays

I am the father of 3 children and two of them, born 8 years apart, share my birthday. I have read and listened on radio 4 to David discuss the probability that there would be 8 families in the uk with 3 children in a family sharing a birthday; but I wonder - is it any more or less likely for a parent and 2 children?

Karen

My dear Mother passed away on the 16th January 2014 the day before my fortieth birthday. In her Eulogy the family had contributed memories and facts about her life, where she lived what she enjoyed etc...in particular I recalled how she used to enjoy bingo at he commodore club with her mother when she was alive which was at least 25 years ago. Yesterday a friend at work asked me if I would like to go to the commodore bingo (the very same place ....my friend had no idea the content of the Eulogy or anything about my Mum, I never heard anyone outside my immediate family mention that place). Also yesterday I was talking to a work mate about my mum, he had recently lost his father. We were getting ready to leave work and chatting about the effect of bereavement on our lives. He said bye to me and then I accessed the computer one last time to finish off a report on one of my clients...I clicked on the wrong client record but couldn't help notice that the client was living at the address my Mum lived at as a child ( this address was also mentioned in the Eulogy).

10th January

My birthday is January 10th 1951. My mother died on 10th January 2011 at approx. 4 am. My father died on January 10th 2014 at 3.30am.

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