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!

Fishbone

Did you ever found a fishbone in a sashimi or a sushi? Once i was in a japanese restaurant with my mother and a cousin. At the exactly same time we found a fishbone in each sashimi we were eating. Never again in my life me or anyone else i know found a fishbone in any japanese raw fish. That night we found 3 at the exactly same time in 3 diferent sashimis. It simply didnt make sence!!!

why do you smell and see what I smell and see so far away?

I just recently got in contact with a girl for whom I have always wondered how she was doing, and if I will ever see her again. I have held this close to my heart for a very long time. about a month ago I found her on Facebook. She is still very stunning to my eyes. We got to texting, we would do some catching up on one anothers lives and experiances. I could not have emagined that we would have so many simmialer things happen to us. I know things like this trigger some events, But not this many. I started looking up what this could be called, it sounds to good to be true, but it's not like that at all. I started feeling different. I do things now like treat everyone different, better then before. I know myself and this is not my way. Happyness of contacting an old love, but no. I'm doing better. I was reading about parallal lives but it only covered a small fraction of this case. even if the stories are not truth, Then why would it be something I would make up? it doesn't add up to anything I have read. Is it soul mates? is it gods gift of everlasting love. Or just games our minds play when enncountered with souch feelings? I don't feel it is.

What came first?

There is a road named The West Bank in Stamford Hill, North London. This Area "is home to Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish and Adeni Jewish community". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford_Hill It made me chuckle!

Bizzare New Friendship

My friend Katherine and I have started a friendship through college and know each other about two years now. Over the Last couple of months we've grown particularly close after she came to visit and stay with me when I lived in America during the summer. We got on so well I invited her to my home town in Ireland to meet my family, friends and show her around. She stayed the night and we had a great time and just as she was leaving the next day, she was walking out the front door but had to return inside because a long brown hair was caught in her left eye. Her eye was watering and turning red and she couldn't get the hair out. We thought nothing of it. A few weeks later she took me to her home town to meet her family and friends. After my visit,Just as I exited her house, my eye started to itch, water and sore and I discovered I had a long brown hair caught in my left eye which I couldn't remove for a while. We stated the coincidence, but the timing and silmutaneous nature of the incident, that we both happened to be leaving from our first ever visit in each others homes/family meeting was strange.

McDonald's convo.

My friend and i were eating at McDonald's and i brought up the weatger. I said "the weather is..." and at the same exact time, we both said "pristine. " It was crazy

Comes in 3s

Reading 'the girl I like' and '3rd time lucky' reminded me what happened today - our chairman of our resident's committee resigned...why is this a coincidence? One of the people who comes to our meetings is a rep of the housing association - she has only recently started in that position. She remarked today that she must be jinxed as the previous two meetings she has been two - the chair person also resigned.

Titanic coincidence

Yesterday (7/10/13) I was reading the newspaper online which had an article on Saturn's moon TITAN. In the evening I stayed up late and watched QI with Stephen Fry who happened to have Brian Cox on the show - the subject of TITAN,the moon of Saturn cropped up. Today - whilst talking on Facebook,trying to convince someone that coincidences are not how God speaks to people,I happened to call one of my webpages into play which is from FOCUS magazine - this referred to the mystery of the ship TITAN which made me recall that I had yet another page on the same ship. None of which makes me think God is trying to make me think of Titan.

The Cowboy Hat

One day, after eating in a Chinese restaurant, I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette while my wife and kids stayed inside to pay the bill. While I was outside, I was looking at myself in the reflection of the window and thinking that maybe I should wear a cowboy hat the next time my band played. I never wear a hat when I play, but I was thinking it would be fun to make a change and wear a cowboy hat considering that my next show is in Arizona and it, being the West, would be appropriate. A few minutes later, my kids walked out of the restaurant and one of them handed me a fortune cookie. I usually don't eat the cookie, but for some reason I opened the package and cracked the cookie, handing the cookie part back to my daughter. When I read the fortune, it said, "Try a new hat for a change in looks. Be creative." Needless to say, I got goosebumps and I saved the fortune.

Divine intervention?

A young English naval officer based in Oslo, Norway went on holiday to Trondheim, up the coast. Being a keen organist he visited Trondheim Cathedral and asked to see the organ console there. Arriving in the organ loft he found a young English lady organist already there; they got on so well that they were subsequently married. Two years later, at short notice he was asked to stand in as godfather at the baptism of the son of another expat friend in Oslo. In England the baby's family lived just round the corner from the lady organist. Two years after that, the naval officer moved to Kuala Lumpur, where his new next door neighbour turned out to be the baby's other godfather.

Brother from another father

My brother arrived at university to find on the next staircase a fellow student whose father had *exactly* the same, and otherwise unique, name as our father (forename, middle name, surname). Not sure how the college authorities coped with this!

Pages