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!

Meeting Friends in the Airport

As a child, I lived in Columbia, Maryland for 5 years. We moved to Frankfurt, Gemany when I was 13. About a year and a half after living in Frankfurt, I was with a friend taking his friend to Frankfurt International Airport so he could return to the United States. As we were standing in line at the ticket counter, a girl turned around and we immediately recognized each other- she and her family lived across the street from us when we lived in Columbia, Maryland.

Remarkable link to an object over significant distance and time

Travelling from Australia (where my family lives) to Sweden with my Dad (67) to visit his homeland and upon visiting a school friend he had not seen in over 55 years, discovering the friend's wife had bought a cookbook originally belonging to my late grandmother (15 years previous) from a secondhand store (her distinctive name was written inside). The new owner of the book didn't even know of the potential link until our visit and a chance perusal through the book. She kindly gave it to me and it is now a cherished heirloom. I found it remarkable that upon travelling over 13,000 kilometres to a town of 27,000 people and a person in particular who was a chance meeting, that person with a very delicate link to myself would end up with a book belonging to my never-met grandmother and better yet - discovered the link the day we visited!

Invisible phone line

My partner and I seem to have some odd connection. We met two years ago. We both have daughters called Rosie in the fashion industry. Our mothers' best friends were both called Nola. Our fathers were both actors (we met on a farm in NZ, not a theatre). There is more of that sort of thing.<br /><br /> But what is most extraordinary is the number of times we call/text each other simultaneously, even after days apart. A couple of weeks ago Eliza was away working, as she often is. I thought "I haven't heard from ELiza for a bit," turned my head to my phone and immediately there was a buzz and a text from her appeared on my screen. This sort of thing has become so common we don't even mention it any more.

eye eye

Just this second i sent an image of a close up of my eye to a friend with the caption "eye eye". I clicked send on my phone and glanced at my computer screen where for about 5 seconds there was an image (from a scrolling selection of about 300 photos i collected about 4 years ago) saying "beauty is in the EYE of the beholder"

Cat

We had an all white fluffy long-haired pet cat who had a very distinct look (grandchild of a rag doll cat). For various reasons we have him to a family who love 2 hours drive away. I moved house to another town near my old one. One day I looked out the window and saw our cat walk past my house looking very unwell and beaten up. It was so convincing I went outside and called him with the sound he used to come to me with but he had gone. I then got upset and called the family to make sure he was still with them and ok, which he was. He must have been the most amazingly perfect doppleganger. We don't often see many cats out in our street (except for one of our neighbours' cats) and I didn't see the doppelgänger again for months. 4-8 months later i had a very intense and real dream about our old cat. When I woke up, I was thinking about him, opened the front door and the doppelgänger cat was sitting there half a metre from me wanting to be stroked. It definitely unsettled me.

Butterfly

My mother was telling my date and I about how "the butterfly is the symbol of transformation". Exactly as she said it, a butterfly fluttered outside the open window behind her. What made it even stranger was that we were 3 floors up in a top floor flat, of the highest building in the village 2 weeks ago (end of October 2013)... I.e. It's very very rare, if not unlikely, to ever see a butterfly that high up.

Ghost from the past

Our house was chosen at random in the locality by the council to have a residential survey carried out. The guy who called round was from a company in Yorkshire that the council had outsourced the work to. While we were chatting over a coffee he said he was from a certain town in Yorkshire. I told him that my husband had had a friend at university (and we are talking 30 years ago) from that town who had been killed in a car accident in the vacation of his second year. This guy went white and said 'we had all been on a night out. I was travelling in the car behind'. What are the chances of that?

Same road, miles from home 50 years later

I used to live in Kent. Paternal grandmother lived in Barnet, Uncle (mother's brother) lived in Buckhurst Hill. We would visit granny once a year, usually in spring, and when we did, we would make a trip to see uncle for an hour or so, taking us through Enfield and Ponders End. We (I, wife and family) now live in wales (different houses but within 5 miles of each other). Younger daughter has married someone whose granddad lives in Edmonton. I promised to take grandson on a train trip round london. While they were staying with granddad, I came up independently by train. They picked me up from Travellodge to go to eat at a hungry horse pub. Road report said that direct route was jammed, so we went north and then east, and I suddenly realised that we were on the same road I had used so often 50 years before, saying that we would soon be going over the bridge that replaced the Ponders End level crossing. And we did, and stayed on the road for several miles. Seems strange how many things had to come together to make this coincidence.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Early one morning around 5:30am I found myself thinking about President Roosevelt. I'm a bus driver and I was driving to my starting destination. When I arrived at the destination I began setting the bus up, proper signage, etc when I noticed something behind the drivers seat. There was a little green book and it was about president Roosevelt. The book was written by his son-in-law and published in the late 60's. It doesn't stop there. While on my route I was stopped at a stop light. A bank building was on my right, but across the street was an apartment complex named DELANO Apartments.

Indianapolis

I was listening to a play on the radio, and one of the characters said someone had moved to Indianapolis. I was also reading an email which arrived as i was listening to the radio. At the exact time that the character said 'Indianapolis' on the radio, my eye fell on upon the word 'Indianapolis' written in the email.

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