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 Birthday as House Seller

On buying a house in another town and receiving the keys for the house , I suddenly realised that the house had a security alarm. I quickly texted the vendor to ask if they had left the house alarmed and if so what was the code to disable the alarm. They replied that the code was "1203" , I replied that the code is same as the date of my birthday. The vendor texted back "Mine too!"

Old friends

1. My name is Kitty. A few years back, one day out of the blue I thought of my close friend back in uni. On the same day, she emailed me saying she was thinking of me so decided to drop a line to say hello! Places: I was in Sydney and she in Boston USA. Dates: 2008/06 2. I was watching telly. There was this documentary about social fabric and social interaction in the UK, and there were various respondents/interviewees of different gender, age and cultural backgrounds etc. At that moment I suddenly thought about my best high school mates back in the 90's, I just suddenly felt like "this is that kind of show that she will be on!" And then, there she was! On the show, I still remember- she was one of other two or three respondents to some sort of blind test. On the show, they were all sitting at a roadside cafe and were participating in some pyschological tests on I think genders and attraction. In hindight, it feels more surprising now. But at that moment, you just had this spontaneous feeling, this sort of thing is never deliberate if you know what I mean. Places: I was in Sydney and she was in UK in that doc. Dates: 2008/06 P.s.

Simon says

I work in a factory , and a new manager arrived 2009 from out of town , he myself and another member of staff are talking on a coffee break and we are talking about our favourite music , always embarrassed about my taste in music as it was popular 10 years before I was born I try to avoid saying my favourite song , but he pushes for an answer then readily agrees with me and says it,s a lovely song , after many more similar conversations it turns out his ex wife has my name , my ex has his , his middle name is my Dads name and his daughter has my sisters name . In summertime I regularly visit a lovely seaside town and if I moved from my current city it would be there I would love to go , couldn't believe it when I found out that's where he lives and it is also where my Grandmother was brought up .

saw a black cat and then got hit by a car

so sorry but Kevin I got hit by car this keeps happening over and over

Meeting Mutual Friends on a Mountain

My husband travels a lot for his work. One New Year he was in Cape Town and had enough spare time to climb Table Mountain. Half way up he stopped to rest and was joined by a man coming down the mountain. They got talking. The stranger was South African but it turned out he had recently been staying with friends in the village two miles from us. Not only did we know his friends but around the time my husband and the South African were meeting I was dancing with the mutual friends at a New Year's eve party.

Identical Photographs fall off wall at exactly the same moment

In the summer of 1987, my family returned to a holiday cottage we had found the year before on the coastal path in West Wales. It is in a beautiful and remote setting and was large enough to comfortably sleep 10 of us. It fulfilled all our needs for the foreseeable future and we planned many more annual stays there. I took a photograph of the cottage in all it's glory with the beach in the foreground and the Preselli Hills in the background and was so pleased with it that I ordered two framed, poster-sized, prints, one for myself and one for my in-laws. Now, because I own the negatives, I can be fairly confident that only two of these framed photos exist, one hanging on the wall in my home in Andover and the other over 150 miles away on my in-laws wall in Swansea, which makes them pretty exclusive. At precisely the same moment, 3:00pm on Christmas Day 1987, both these identical photographs fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. Nobody was near them when they fell, there were no earthquakes in Britain that day and no other pictures fell in either household.

Premonition - Fate - Destiny

Hello - Back in 1977, was trying to locate the house of an old friend of mine at the other side of the town and stopped in a neighbourhood -As I got off my car I saw a person behind the gate of a house and approached to ask for some help - He showed me the way to find the house of my friend but he he also said to me " The registration number of your car, as you see, is F J 611 and this clearly shows that in future you will find a job in a place which will have an emblem representing the registration of your present car" - In 1982 an uknown company was inviting applications for a vacancy and self submitted an application - Iwas interviewed by a representative of this company and was successful - We agreed on the details of employment and at that moment he said to me, " Let me check what the personnel manual has to say about this', and he lifted frm a tray on his office a thick file, and, instantly I saw at the back of the file the image of a huge golden falcon drawn at the back cover of the file ! On the top it was written " GULF AIR" - At once I realised that the registration of my car i.e. F J 611 was meant to be "Eagle Jet" - i.e.

Name & address co-incidence

When I was growing up I lived at 26 Derby Road, Poulton le Fylde which is near Blackpool. Our family name is "Aird". We were amazed to find that a Dr Aird (a physician and no relation as far as we knew) had his surgery at 26 Derby Road, Blackpool about 4 miles away! Even more coincidental, Dr Aird had a son called Robert which is my name and their family home was in Poulton le Fylde, in Beech Drive; our house in Derby Rd was a corner house on Beech Avenue, at least a mile and a half from them.

Anamorphosis

So I went to work this morning late because i was unwell. Once into he office a colleague showed me a postcard with a paint of Jan_van_Eyck asking me if i wanted it. Don't know why but that paint reminded me another painting and a particular way of painting objects... I couldn't remember exactly so i googled and found out the wiki article about the picture i had in mind with the anamorphic skull. The wiki was about the ambassadors of holbein and jan van eyck was quoted in the article too. After an hour my boyfriend (who lives in another country) sends me a message on the messenger with the link to a website. It was an article about an artist that creates anamorphic sculptures. I ultimately read the artcle and find out that this artist is one of the co-founder of the biggest company in my buisness sector (not at all an 'artistic' sector), my boyfriend didn't knowanything about that. Are those meaningful matches?

Plenty of them

Hello, My name is Rossana and I am 25 years old. In my life many coincidences happened. (Big and small). For example, i have only one older brother who is nearly 16 years older than i am. my dads birthday is on the 14 of October (14+10=24). My moms bday is on the 13th of November (13+11=24), my brothers birthday is on the 16th of August (16+8=24) and at last my birthday, as the last child, is on the 24th of December. Hope I could help! Best regards, Rossana

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