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!

Same House

Dear David I belong the Campaign to Protect Rural England.(CPRE). I volunteered to attend a North of England day Conference being held in Leeds. I arrived there 10 minutes before proceedings were due to start. I looked around the room - where I noted there were about 30 people - but saw no-one I knew. I went to the refreshment table and spoke to a lady who was getting herself a coffee. I asked her where she had travelled from, and she said she was from Middlesborough. I I said I knew the town a little. She then asked me where I was from and I told her from the other side of the Country - Merseyside. She then said she had lived over in that area and asked more specifically whereabouts I said I was from the Wirral Peninsula, to which she said she knew it well. When i told her I lived in West Kirby, she said she had lived there too. I then asked her what road she had lived in and I told her. Oh, she said that was the road she had lived in too. I then asked her what number, and she said it was No 14.... I then said that was where I live!!

A Coincidental Love

The first time I met this guy was, when I attended an Open Day, I was graduating that year and was job hunting before the end of the school year. I was at the guard house within the vicinity of the company conducting the open day. We both came up to the guard at the same time to write our names in the log book. We look at each other and smiled then he let me write in the log book first. During the entire process of the assessment we didn't bother to ask each others names or get to know. We just merely wait for our turns and just remembered our names when the recruiter called our names. After my turn, he left the building already. Second time I saw him was, on that same month, all universities with computer studies colleges in our city were invited to attend a seminar at another university. While attending the seminar, I was looking for a wash room. I have to pass by the lobby to get to the other side of hall. When I walked down the lobby, I stop for few minutes as there are a lot of students also passing, and someone poke me at my arm. It was him, I was surprise to see him the 2nd time. He smiled and asked me, have I saw you somewhere before?

Texting at similar times

My boyfriend and I often think about each other at similar times. Today we thought about each other and texted each other at exactly 3:39pm which was not coordinated on purpose, it just happened. This followed a period of a few hours of no contact (we're both at work). This is not a single occurrence.

Napkin Ring

When I was born I was given a silver napkin ring engraved with my initials. When I married I gave one to my wife. We have three sons and we gave engraved silver napkin rings to the first two but never got round to buying one for our third son, Rupert William Leslie Major. I was stationed in the North East on an Army posting in the mid 1980s. We were in the Yorkshire Dales browsing in a flea market when my wife picked up a silver napkin ring engraved with the initials RWLM. As you can guess, we brought it! (From the hallmark, the ring was made in Birmingham in 1944?)

Seeing or hearing name of friend on pavement

Often, I see and hear the first name of my best Friend Colleen, several instances during a day. In a commercial on TV, followed by seeing it in an article I happen upon in a magazine, followed by seeing her name in a line of credits after a movie, followed by hearing her name when another person is introduced at a meeting I am at. Colleen and I are best Friends for over 40 years, and when this occurs, I phone or text her, to find out if she is OK. At one time, around 1992, early in our Friendship, I was 50 miles distant from her and we had a serious disagreement over the phone, threatening our Friendship. After hanging up, I proceeded to walk to a small children's playground, mulling the tiff in my mind, As I walked the path through the park, I saw the following words in chalk on the ground : "I love you Colleen" with no punctuation. As I stared at it in surprise, and because of the phone conversation, I read the words and realized it had two meanings...if punctuated properly. One meaning with a comma, was "I love you, Colleen" as a statement. But if I read it with a period, as "I love you. Colleen, as if it were a response.

Muz

I took a course and the person that partnered up with me for discussion purposes, seemed similar to me in the male form. After that course, I would see him once in a while at other meetings, and if at these meetings we were split up into groups which we had no hand in deciding, we would be put in the same group. After a year or 2, I ran into him at all different times in all different places, sometimes once a week for 3 weeks, sometimes once every 3 weeks for about 3 or 4 times but after times like that, would not run into him again for 6 months or more. Then it would repeat, sometimes he was by himself, sometimes just with his daughters, and sometimes with his wife and sometimes with all of them. Three of the most bizzare occurances were; one morning, earlier than the store was supposed to open because of a sale, I was there buying a new shirt for an upcoming vacation. I turned around and he was also there buying something for his wife..an hour earlier than the store was supposed to open. Another was when I saw he and his family in a store, then at a mall nearby. I was with my daughters. After about 2 hours we were leaving, lined up with other cars to pull out of the mall.

Miracles

A miracle. What makes you know what is the miracle? It is when something happens quite usually when it has like .0001 chance of it happening. I have been developing a submission to the LORD, and his "miracles" have been proving to me that this universe's context is not based on mathematical possibilities but on the will of the one mighty deity. We all pull our cell phones quite usually. if, in the screen, you see "sets" of "similar" numbers or immediate changes in the minute digit area, you think there is something quite weird. A few weeks ago, I made my first $600 sale. As I was trying to pull out my phone to see the date and record it on the order form, the digits were 7:17 17%. I thought: "No one grants me other than the God." I took a screen shot of it like every time when I see a dramatic coincidence. A few days ago, I texted the most important cousin, who I have been isolating myself from him due to some problems. He texts me back, and the screen shows his text and, over it, 5:55 44%. One day, my dad was coming back from a one month trip.

woman in the queue

Travel coincidence About 20 years ago I had to travel from London to the village of Orford in Suffolk to visit a restaurant and write an article about it for a magazine. I arrived at Liverpool Street station and queued to buy a ticket to Woodbridge. There was a wait and a woman was queueing in front of me. At Woodbridge station I took a taxi the 12 miles to Orford, met the restaurant owner and we went into the restaurant to do the interview as it was quiet. I noticed somebody sitting at a nearby table then realised she was the woman in the queue at Liverpool Street.

Small world

An old school friend crashed on our coach when I shared a flat in South London during my first degree. Over breakfast we got chatting about life, etc, and somehow I mentioned a new friend I'd met at university. On hearing the name, my friend asked, "what colour's his hair?". I replied it was red. "And what's his name again?" I told him . "Oh my god, that's X, my best friend in primary school when I spent a year back in Cyprus." Needless to say, I made sure I found out a few embarrassing stories to freak my new friend out.

Triple coincidence

Dear Professor Spiegelhalter, I was fascinated by The Life Scientific this morning especially coincidence. Here's another one: A month ago we were in The George, a wonderful old pub in Norton St. Philip in Somerset for a family meal. I started a conversation with another customer about medieval pubs and he mentioned The Fighting Cocks in St Albans. My husband was educated at St. Albans Grammar ( now Verulam school ) and it transpired that, not only was this guy educated there too, albeit at a different time, but also worked at De Havilland in Hatfield, when it still existed, where my husband's father worked years ago. Having finished the conversation, a guy from the next table got up, came over to us and said, "I couldn't help hearing your conversation. I was at the Verulam School too!" So ensued another conversation about remembered members of staff. I think our daughter wondered if she was ever going to get to eat! We wondered about the probability of three people from different parts of the country meeting in a Somerset pub, having been in the same place years ago although not at the same time. Myra Miller.

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