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!

Garden Find

Some years ago my husband and I were double digging the vegetable plot. The house is built on agricultural land and at that time was about 10 years old. I hit something hard with the spade and dug it out. It was blue pottery and after cleaning off the soil I discovered it was a nearly complete christian cross. Nothing strange about that you may say - except that it was on Good Friday! I'm not at all religious but it was a little freaky.

My wife meets teenage friend 50 years later

Between age 10 and 15 my wife's family lived in Lettons Way, Dinis Powys, outside Cardiff. It was a cul de sac of modern houses bought mainly by young families and the children in the road soon got to know each other well and played together and went to parties together. My wife gradually lost touch with her friends as everyone grew up and moved away; she has since lived most of her life in London. In 2012 my wife and I, as we often do, went for a game of bridge to our local bridge club and, by chance in order to make a four, sat at a table with two women that we didn't know, or so we thought! After about ten minutes, during which my wife had seemed somewhat distracted, she said to one of the women "Are you xxxx yyyy?''. The other lady immediately replied "I'm xxxx zzzzzz but my maiden name was yyyy". The bridge was forgotten for several minutes as my wife introduced herself as one of the children in Lettons Way 50 years before (the other bridge player had no connection). The other lady (and her younger sister - see below) had been good friends and my wife had recognised her.

Laurence Errington

Forty years ago (when I was a university student, my good friend lost her cat just before she had to return to Germany. Three months later, I was living in a different place about 2 miles away, and my friend had come back to visit for a week or so. As one was wont to do, we decided, late at night to visit a friend who lived very near to where we used to live. As midnight approached, and we were about to turn the corner leading to where we had lived, we speculated on how wonderful it would be to find the cat. On turning the corner, there was the cat sitting in the middle of the road. Owner and cat were reunited and she returned to Germany with her pet. It's the happiness of this story of that I particularly like.

From Leeds to Lesotho

After graduating from Leeds University in 1971 I spent a period of time as a volunteer in Lesotho. I was one of a small number of volunteers working at different locations throughout the country. After several months there I was in discussion with one the other volunteers who, in transpired, had also been at Leeds University whilst I was there. No big coincidence, until we discovered we'd both lived in the same road in Headingley for the same two years. I lived at number 20 whilst he lived at 19. We both occupied the identical top floor front rooms overlooking each other across the road. So we'd lived about 15 yards apart for 2 years, but we'd not met, nor even recognised each other, until we met 6,000 miles away in Lesotho! Another shorter coincidence relating to my Headingley address - several years after I left Leeds University, my wife and I were attending a wedding in Lincoln. The person sitting next to me at the reception (who I'd never met before) lived in the same room in the same house as me a couple of years after me.

Apollo 11

I was in New York, my wife was sick and I saw a bit in the New York Times that said it was the anniversary of man landing on the moon July 20 1969 and that there was a ceremony at the "Cradle of Aviation Museum" on Long Island. Nobody seemed to know of this place and I can only recommend those that are interested in aviation and space to go there! So, I am on the train from Penn Station .. and to deviate a bit ... I get to the station (Beth Page) and catch a cab to the museum ... there is no one else about so I get the cab drivers number to make sure I can get out of there. I gain entry to the museum and there is a Congressman cutting a cake in front of a lunar module that turned out to be the one that was built for Apollo 18 which never flew. There was a group of people next to the Congressman. I asked the TV journalist (there was no one but me and the TV crews there) who the people were and it turned out they were all retired Grumman engineers. So, I got to talk to the people who hand built the lunar module .. how cool was that? But the coincidence was on the train.

Unplanned Encounters

August 2005. My husband and I were on the deck of a ferry leaving the port at Calais when I noticed my brother's yacht as it was sailing into the port. I had only learned the name of the boat a week or so beforehand when I sailed on it to scatter our mother's ashes. Furthermore, about a week later, my father and I decided to have an unplanned lunch at a favourite restaurant which over looks the marina where my brother moored his boat. I was sitting facing the window looking out over the river, when I noticed my brother's yacht sailing in. None of us knew details of each other's travel plans.

Shotputters in the Sahara

I was riding a motorbike (Honda XL500) from London to Niamey (France, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria, Niger) in the winter of 1980/81 (the time that Mark Thatcher got lost). In Tamanrasset in Southern Algeria I met an (another) Australian who was hitch hiking across the desert with Algerian truck drivers. We sat in a café and acknowledge each other and said we would meet in Agadez in Niger. A few days later we met in Agadez, where at last we could get a beer, and started to talk on the what do you do, where do you come from basis. He came from Brisbane, I said I had only been to Brisbane once which was for the Australian Athletic Championships (1977?). It turned out we were both juniors (under 19) and that we have thrown shot against each other in the same competition!!!!

OTP124

We live in Sandhurst Berkshire and one Summer in the mid-sixties we went for a holiday in Norfolk in our Morris Minor Traveller reg.no. OTP124. A year later, having in the meantime changed our car, we went again to Norfolk for our Summer holiday. On the return journey we stopped in a layby near Royston (a long way from where we had sold OTP124) for a break and while we were there OTP124 passed by going in the same direction as if travelling from Norfolk to Sandhurst as it had done 12 months before.

Crossed Lines

Back in the late fifties when outside telephone calls were routed through the Establishment's telephone exchange my boss asked the operator for a Tatsfield (Kent) number to speak to a Mr Griffiths, manager of the BBC's listening station there, in order to arrange a visit. When the connection had been made my boss enquired if he was speaking to Mr Griffiths and received an affirmative. He then set about explaining the purpose of the call to an increasingly puzzled Mr Griffiths. It transpired that the operator had misheard the name of the exchange and had made the call to the required number but through the Hatfield exchange where it reached a different Mr Griffiths.

Happy Birthday

My brother's birthday,June 20, my birthday June 22, my Father's birthday September 22, my mother's Sept 26,am I making assumptions? Even worse we are 8 years apart!!

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