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!

Telephone calls

On several occasions I have thought of a telephone call, dreamed of a telephone call, and once heard the air ringing, the day before or just before a distant and usually unexpected person has rung me.

"Amorous" Black Cat

I was on holiday on Skyros, a Greek island and had been to a talk about a mile away. On the stroll back, among a group of about 30 people, I was telling my friend that I felt sad and lonely. It was a full moon and the white buildings were lit with moonlight. A black tom cat came out into the street, made straight for me and wriggled and purred in front of me, and no-one else, for a long way. My friend, a hard-boiled scientist, said she wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it.

Mention of Aldous Huxley

I was living in Florence, Italy (am a Londoner) and went on holiday to Siracusa, Sicily. On the train and in my hotel I read and finished Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza. In the morning I went to a bar for breakfast and overheard two Italian men leaning on the bar saying in Italian "it was all very well what Huxley was saying in the 1930s"!

father and daughters

I have 5 kids 3 Daughters and we think the same things all the time. when we are in different places and sometime 100"s of miles apart. so a few days a go. I and my 18 yr. old decided to start and experiment. we decide that every time either of us crossed or thought of the other. we would write down the exact time . I must say it is very impressive. and freaky . If there is anyone that read this and has a comment. I would love to hear form you

Birthdate coincidence

Out walking with a friend we came across a group who were taking a break from their work mending the path's surface. We had never seen them before. We got chatting with them and one offered us a Mars Bar he had in his lunch box saying he was full and didnt want to return home with it. He was very insistent that we took the Mars Bar, so, although we didnt intend to eat something given by a complete stranger, we did accept it. On leaving the group I looked at the Best Before date on the Mars Bar which showed the day and month of my birthday.

Birthday coincidence of the third order

My friend Robert is a bellringer in Cambridge and his birthday is 4th April. He wrote in a letter: At the start of April, we had a birthday party for my mother* and her twin sister, also with birthdays on the the 4th April. At the more unusual level of coincidence, another Cambridge ringer has her birthday on 4th April, together with her mother (also a ringer) and her mother's twin sister. * Robert's mother is also a bellringer

House mates meet

Not my story but when I was at Birmingham University 40 years ago there were 26 of us on my course and six of us shared a house. Two of the blokes particularly didn't like each other. At the end of the second year we all went off to do our own thing for the summer. These two, without prior knowledge were both traveling around Europe and found themselves sitting on the same bench in St Mark's square in Venice one lunchtime. They weren't particularly pleased to meet and didn't continue their journeys together!

Missing Bangle

Something amazing has just happened. In 1998, I lost my gorgeous solid silver bracelet when I was out one night in Southampton. It was a present from my mother who had carried it around with since she acquired it in the '70s. I was absolutely mortified that I'd lost it! Earlier today, 15 years later, I happened to see one that looked JUST like it on 'Facebay Southampton', on sale for £20. I bought it right away and I'm almost certain that it is exactly the same one; it's even got the same little dent! I'm so happy and I can't wait to show my mother!

Cricket photos

This took place in the early 1990's. I unusually, as reception staff normally did this, met a delivery driver as he dropped something off at my place of work. His wearing a cricket club tie sparked a conversation. I told him that I used to play for Hornsey Cricket Club in London. He told me that he had bought photos at a boot fair in his area (Staines I think), on the back were notes that they were of a Hornsey match. He had returned them to the club. The coincidence was that the probability of me meeting the chap at the door were low, I don't think he delivered regularly to our business. Increasing the odds of this happening are that he may have been an obsessional discoverer of cricket photos and always wore cricket club ties. My work place was in Canterbury, Kent U.K. The photos had been taken by Hampstead and Highgate Express. They presumably cleared out old photos

saving a life -maybe

Walking home from the pub despite the fact that i had not done so for more than 8 years-always preferred a taxi except for tonight - don't know why i decided to walk the couple of miles home through country lanes. On the way home was walking across the local by-pass bridge in the pitch dark when I stumbled across a man in the dark who was preparing to jump off the parapet. Young man circa 20-25 years old. He told me his life was over............ after we talked he did not jump but went home. was I meant to stop him???

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