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!

Falling at my feet

I had a particularly hard time when my mum died suddenly and years later I was having an I depth conversation with my fiancé (now husband) about how I still found it difficult even though I was older. A gust of wind got up and blew a blank greeting card to my feet with the word Acceptance pri ted on the front. : )

a type of coincidence

I was given a very old typewriter by a professional forger who was living in a flat I owned and had fallen behind with his rent. He used the typewriter to write forged certificates of authentication from Hollywood studios in order to pass off dodgy "signed" photos of stars of the 1930's & 40's. Many years after I decided I might sell it as my wife complained it was cluttering the house. I searched for the serial number and when I found it (CB 13658). I found the model - built around 1935. I thought there was something familiar about the number and then realised it was my date of birth.

My two sons

My two sons were born in the same operating theatre in Margate hospital at the same time 7.04pm, 15 months apart.

Jason Donovan

I had a dream that Jason Donovan was on a breakfast show being interviewed. I thought it was weird as I'm not a fan and seemed quite uneventful. I switched on the tv and there've was beig interviewed by Lorraine Kelly for breakfast tv, continuing the conversation they had had in my dream : )

Montana, USA

I live in the UK and I'm currently on a road trip on a motorcycle working my way South through the USA. In the last 24 hours in Montana, I've had lunch at Ford's Drive In (my second name), ridden through a town called Moore (good friends second name) and am going to see a movie tonight at the Judith Cinema (my wife's first name)......

Who'd have dreamt it

I once had a weird dream where my boss had brought in custard creams and offered me one. It was weird as my boss never brought in biscuits and it seemed like an odd focus for a dream. I was very surprised when I got to work and my boss offered me a custard cream with my tea : )

Google it

My previous job was as an inhouse packaging account manager for a large food service company and I had a permanent desk at their large open plan offices. One day I was tasked with finding some fancy dress products for a promo they were planning. So I typed into Google "themed party" my desk was by some double doors and just as I finished typing two people walked in and one said to the other "you should have a themed party", that's weird I thought. So I then typed in green pens, I soon as I stopped typing someone walked through the door and asked me for a green pen. "Ok, lunchtime" I thought : )

Meeting someone faraway

When I was a teenager living on the southside of Glasgow there were 3 girls who I would see walking past my house maybe 2 or 3 times a week. They were a year or 2 older than me and from a different school. It seemed to always be the three of them together walking either one way or another.<br /> I go on holiday with my parents in our caravan and am on the busy pier at Weston Super Mare and the 3 girls walk past me!<br /> We return home the following week and very soon after we arrive home and are unpacking the car and caravan the 3 girls walk past...

unexpected reunion on bus a long way from home

Returning from a trip on a public bus 200 miles away from home. I was the last onto the bus and was so extraordinarily late it was about to pull away. I got on the bus and the only seat remaining was right at the back of the bus. Flustered I made my way as quickly as possible to the seat, and as I got I was taken aback to find that sitting in the seat adjacent to the empty one was my very best friend from school who I had lost contact with two years previously. What a way to distract from the stress of nearly missing my trip home!

Marine engineer

Firstly, I have quite a few personal coincidence stories and I put most of them down to having had a variety of jobs in my life meeting a lot of people. This is my favourite. A couple of years ago I was staying weekly in an Hotel in Ely, Cambs, for maybe threee weeks. there was a marine engineer in ther same hotel and a couple of times we passed each other on the M6, all the way from Cardiff on a Monday morning. Which once, is hardly surprising and twice, also not surprising either. The third time, and not on the same bit of the M6 in a hundred mile journey, I said to my colleague 'What's the chance of us seeing that Marine engineer a third time?' My colleague said 'What? Him?' as he was just passing us. I can see spotting the same marine engineer on a shared route as probable. On a Monday more so. But these were the only three occasions we did this trip and there were variables such as traffic from Wales up to the M6, stopping for fuel, stopping for a cashpoint and stopping for a fag break which would make the third passing less and less of a probability.

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