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!

Tube encounter

Many years ago (1995) I appeared on a one-series wonder Quiz Show called Raise the Roof - part of the process involves filling in contestant forms and the researchers often keep these forms after the show has ended for future use. About 4 years later, I went out with a friend one night and after consuming far too much alcohol, I decided to stay at her flat, rather than take the more complicated route home. Consequently, the next morning, I took a totally different route into work, involving a different Tube line, the District Line from East Putney. I was sitting on the Tube, when I looked up to notice one of the researchers who previously worked on Raise the Roof. We had (what I thought) that brief - don't I know you? - moment as we both looked at each other. However, the researcher then ruffled through the pile of papers he was looking through and said, "I don't believe this.

Book coincidence

Back in 1985 I worked in Switzerland. One Sunday, with nothing to do, I drove into the mountains above Montreux. I came across a small town called Glion. As it was a sunny day I sat down on the terrace of the railway cafe and ordered a hot chocolate. I then settled down to read my book, Scott Fitzgerald's 'Tender is the night'. In the chapter I read the main characters cycle to Glion, stop at the railway cafe and order a hot chocolate.

The Tao of Pooh

I was listening to a radio version of the Tao of Pooh as I drove to work about a month ago. As I drove into the car park the narrator was giving and example of something and said 'look there's a rabbit'. Exactly on the beat of the word rabbit a rabbit appeared before my car about 15 meters from where I was about to drive. I braked and watched as the rabbit continued to cross my path. A few seconds passed as I tried to come to terms with what had just happened. It felt like a cosmic hint and I did feel rather unsettled by the event. I have never seen a rabbit in our car park before or since. It was uncanny.

Coincidence, random or fate.

In my final year as an undergraduate student at the University of East Anglia, I built up good relationships with many of my lecturers. After meeting an economics lecturer for the first time during her office opening hours outside of seminars, I decided to thank her the next day by personally giving her a book she’d be interested in. She then decided to recommend me to use the website ‘reddit’ making a specific reference to the Pokemon page she has under her favourites (which I deemed quite peculiar for a 26 year old lecturer talking to an undergraduate). Little did she know that a friend and I were throwing a Pokemon themed party four days later which had been arranged many weeks in advance. I then continued the conversation asking her half-heartedly if she wanted to come. She never did. This was also the same person whose car needed fixing at the same time as mine - discovered during a phone call whilst sitting in her office; to which she paid using the same cooperative current account as I, and whom I saw pulling out of a side road in-front of me, whilst driving a different way to normal to the centre of Norwich after choosing not to email her that morning.

seeing the object of conversation

Driving back from a job many miles from home with my boss (late '80s) I was discussing an interview I had with his ex employer. I was trying to remember the persons name as we pulled into a parking bay at a motorway service station. The person in question got into his car directly in front of us and started to drove off. "Him" I said, pointing, to which my boss replied with the persons name and continued the conversation.

meeting ex wife

My new partner and I rushed to catch one of several ferries across to the Ile de Batz, a small island off Roscoff. I met my ex-wife and her friend on the boat. Neither knew that the other was going to France and there was no shared history of travel to that part of the world. At home she lives about a mile away and I never see her.

Medical coincidence

My 3 year old boy was running around with a wooden drumstick in his mouth (despite frequent admonishments....). He inevitably hit the wall with it on his mouth and came crying to me. I told him off and thought no more about it. That was about 10am. By 12 am he was refusing to eat, spitting out his saliva rather than swallowing it and was running a high temperature. I immediately thought he must have got a splinter from the drumstick in his mouth that was getting infected or swollen. Cue trips to GP, and then on deterioration that evening, to A&E. Neither the GP nor the A&E doctor could see any signs of soft tissue trauma, but were sufficiently concerned by his state that he was about to be kept in overnight. Then the paediatrician arrived, who diagnosed him from a meter away by the smell of his breath, and confirmed on inspection a vicious dose of tonsillitis. 5 days of antibiotics later, he is as right as rain, and now tells other children off - 'Don't run with things in your mouth - you'll get tonsillitis!'. Coincidence not causation - but doctors are trained (rightly) not to believe in coincidences...

Empire State Building

In 2007 I went with my family to New York for a holiday. One day we decided to visit the top of the Empire State Building. As usual in such a popular tourist spot there were lots of other people milling about. My son said to me 'arnt you going to say hello?' I turned around to see one of my neighbours and her daughter, who just happened to also be in New York and had decided to visit the building at the exact time we did.

Someone who knew someone I knew

I live in Birmingham, UK. In the summer of 1991, I was lucky enough to go on an exchange programme with a secondary school in Adelaide, Australia. In around 1996, I was having a long weekend in the tiny fishing village of Coverack, Cornwall, UK. I got talking to someone in the pub there (which I rarely do); she was from Adelaide and it turned out that she knew my Australian exchange partner.

Tea, Earl Grey, hot.

In 2008 I received an email from a friend who was organising a Star Trek: The Next Generation party at her new flat. In it she wrote "Of course 'Tea, Earl Grey, hot' will always be on hand should Captain Jean Luc appear in person." I decided that I just fancied a cup of Earl Grey, so I made myself one and resumed browsing the internet. I was looking in particular for anything by or about Steve Gerber, the comic book writer who was most famous for the Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck. I am a huge fan of Howard the Duck, a highly satirical, very personal work and I was keen to find out what else Gerber had written. As I sipped my Early Grey I discovered that Gerber had written one, solitary Star Trek TNG episode; called "Contagion". I looked up the episode on TV.com and noticed that it received very favourable reviews for its dialogue. In the trivia section the website noted that the episode 'marks the first time we hear Picard order, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" from the replicator.'

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