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!

Boats and vets

I was on a sailing holiday and moored in the marina at Stromness, Orkney. There was a boat moored alongside and after a couple of days I got into a conversation with the owners. My eye had swollen and I felt self-conscious so mentioned it. Both commented so that I asked whether they were medical. He was, he was a vet, and it turned out had trained with my new vet in the place I'd recently moved to!

A small, obscure cafe in London

I was on holiday in Shetland, travelling on the ferry back to Mainland from one of the other islands. I got into a conversation with a Shetlander. She had lived in Islington, London but said her favourite cafe was at Fortune Green, just where I was living at the time, yet the cafe was a small, obscure one!

On the phone to my other half

A couple lived up the road from us in Northampton. We were friends, and both men had jobs that took us to London from time to time, but we didn't work together or go to the same places. I was on a business trip and found I had time to spare between meetings, so decided to wander into Hamleys' toy store in Regent St. On one of the upper floors I saw my friend, who had spontaneously decided to do the same thing. As I approached him, I realised he was on his mobile phone, and found he was talking to his wife, who turned out to be sitting in a cafe in Bicester with my wife.

Nextdoor neighbours cross paths

My partner and I were flying en route to France from Australia via Hong Kong. We decided to have a 3 day break there and spent the time touring, walking and shopping using ferries and taxis. One day we went to Kowloon and did lots of walking through the parks and shops. There were hordes of people everywhere. We went into this huge shopping centre, browsing various shops. As we about to ascend the escalator for the next floor, I saw our next door neighbours from Australia getting off the adjacent escalator. They were on a world cruise spending one day in Hong Kong. Neither of us knew that the other was travelling. I find that the narrow common time in Hong Kong and the chance of crossing paths in such a megalopolis quite extraordinary. We couldn't quite believe it happened. We still are in awe of the event 5 years later.

fate or bate

my brother-in-law brought a cottage three years ago which need some restoration ie new floors ,walls.ceiling .roof .ect,whilst clearing rubble and straw ceilings he came across an old newspaper which he had pulled out of the wall cavity and on flicking through it was shocked stunned when realising the newspaper was printed on the day he was born 26.9.1959 .

coincedence with a man i like

we live in in the same city, for a month not contacted twice happen 1. i was in holiday with my friends for scuba dive in different city n island,he went to the same place like i idid and di scuba dive as well but we cant meet 2. i' m on holiday with family in different city that i live, at that time i felt like to text him to know how hes doin, the fact he is on holiday with family he is in the same city. somehow i was it would be impossible to meet him bcuz we have a different schedule for searching that city. turn out we met stayed in the same hotel 3. our birth date is the same 19 but the different month n year 4. our phone if its calculate is the same 9

Bumping into relations having not been able to make arrangements to meet.

First coincidence is that this happened on the same day I visited understandinguncertainty.org for the first and saw the link asking for readers stories - and thinking I didn't have anything to submit. I live in Northern Ireland but I work in Aberdeenshire and spend a lot of time (and money) travelling betwen the two. Over the past 5 years I estimate I have made the Journey (flights) approximately 150-175 times. My bother-in-law lives in Dumfries, and his daughter (my niece) lives in Barbados with her husband. At this time she was visiting the UK with her new baby. I was on annual leave in Northern Ireland last month but for the first time ever, I had to travel back to work a wekend shift because I couldn't get it swapped. For the first time my daughter travelled with me to spend time in Aberdeenshire but had asked if we could visit Dumfries to see my niece and the baby. Unfortunately, time didn't allow because they are in very different bits of Scotland. We flew to Edinburgh from Belfast and for the first time ever for me, the landing was aborted and we 'went around' making us 10-15 minutes late.

Extremely small world

About a year ago I moved from Cologne to Dresden (Germany), where I found a really nice flat with an extremely friendly landlady. We became friends instantly and so she invited me to her birthday party, where I met her daugther, who's almost exactly my age. I found her on facebook some time later and only then realised that we both had a common friend. Turns out that a good friend of mine who I had been to school with from year 1 and who had gone to Africa after we finished school was now living in Berlin, where he had met my landlady's daughter. They had actually been dating for over a year, so my landlady and all her friends knew him as well.

my boyfriends' sister

Last summer, on a train journey home from London, an extremely goodlooking young Canadian man got on the train and sat opposite me. Fortunately he decided to talk to me, and we hit it off immediately. It wasn't until a few weeks after we had been dating that we realised I used to swim for Wales with his younger sister almost 10 years ago! Such a small world, especially considering that he was 9years older than me, and his sister and the rest of her family had moved away to Canada and I hadn't spoken to her since they moved away.

The three Catastrophes

The last 3 main World-sensational catastrophes in July: 1./ SAN FRANCISCO airport; plain crash (07. July ); 2. / Spanish train crash ( 25 July ); 3./ Italian bus crash (29 July ) I Two of them lend themselves to obvious (mystical?, religious ? ) speculations; - the Spanish train derailed at Santiago , the meaning of which in Spanish: "St James" And it was exectly on the day of the religious holyday of St J. (25th of July ) when this horrible sensational News reached us. - The Italian bus carried mainly pilgrims of which at least 38 were killed in the crash. (They had been visiting the birthplace of Padre Pio, one of Italy's most popular Saints ) From a "mystical perspective" the third catastrophy sends a not at all less important message . This lies in the name: St. Francis of Assisi, San Francescod'Assisi . San Francisco plane crash - YouTube

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