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.

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Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Same name wrong person!

In the 70's my mother had an appointment at Southampton General Hospital for some sort of x-ray. The consultant was very chatty and told her that one of his staff had the same unusual surname but spelt differently - there are only a handful of us in the world, people with the standard spelling usually being from Scandinavia. As my mother came through the door on returning home, the telephone was ringing. The caller was phoning from Germany and was looking for someone with our surname but with the Scandinavian spelling and had telephoned our number because it was the only likely one in the directory. My mother told him that he had the wrong number but knew where he could find the person whom he was trying to contact -The Radiology Department of Southampton General Hospital!

All the 11's

In November 2011 I was in Ferrara in Italy. I had arranged to meet two friends of mine at a bar we frequented during my time there, a bar called UNDICI (eleven in Italian). I arrived at approximately half past ten and waited for my friends. I noticed that there were only five punters in the bar which was unusual as it was a very popular bar every night of the week. There was also two bar staff working. Including myself that made eight people there. I remember thinking how coincidental it would be if there were eleven of us! In the next half an hour, nobody came and nobody left, until my friends arrived at precisely 11 o'clock. Strangely though, they had brought with them a friend of theirs who I had never met before. At 11pm on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011, I was one of 11 people at 'Bar 11'.

Million to one postcard

About thirty years ago my boss collected stamps and old postcards. I was in his office when he showed me his postcard collection - several albums with about a thousand cards in each. Not wishing to appear uninterested, I asked if I could see the reverse of one of the cards and turned one over at random. I could not believe it when I saw it was a card which someone had sent to an aunt of mine in the 1920s. From Chas Wood, Staffordshire

Time to Reconnect after 17 years?

It all began 17 years ago when I was 16 years old and my boyfriend was 15 years old. We began a whirlwind romance that didn't last longer than about 2 months. We loved each other deeply, intensely, and passionately. I feel we were too young to understand and appreciate the dynamics of such a rare and powerful love. I began dating someone else and then a few months later, moved to Florida to pursue my juvenile dreams. I'd come back every summer to visit friends and family and I always made it a point to stop over and visit his parents, also in the hopes I would see him there too. One year I did. He was dating someone at the time. I still felt the same about him at that moment, I was still in love with him. I later found out the girlfriend felt threatened by me and made him purchase her an engagement ring. That relationship didn't last much longer. A few years later, while still living in Florida, I became friends with a guy who I later started dating. One evening while we were hanging out at a local bar, I received a phone call. I couldn't hear the caller very well so I went outside. It was him.

St Cecilia

A poll of professional musicians would probably rank the two greatest English composers as Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten. Both were born on 22 November, which is the name-day of the patron saint of music. How unlikely is that?

A Face from the Past

This concerns David Pugh now aged 76, his wife, Jeanne Pugh, now aged 73. We were married in 1963 and our daughter was born in 1967. At about the time of her birth David went to London to buy a camera to record her young life. Prior to his marriage to Jeanne he had for perhaps 3 years had a romantic attachment with a particularly nice girl called Patters. His wife Jeanne was aware of this relationship. While on his way to purchase this camera he was exiting the London Underground system via an up escalator. To his great surprise and astonishment he saw Patters descending on the down escalator. Remember he had not seen or spoken to her for at least five years. This was a tremendous shock and David shouted 'Hello Patters'. She saw him but the crowded escalators carried them apart. The camera purchase went ahead and David returned home. On entering the house he said to his wife Jeanne, 'You will never guess what happened to me in London this morning'.

Wrong number?

I have posted a few stories here before, but this one has just come to mind. </p> <p>Maybe a dozen years ago I got a mobile phone. After a few weeks I received a text message on it, the first ever. It read something like "Hi (insert my correct name here) I have just come back from China, here is my new phone number xxxxx Please phone me. Jeanette" </p> <p>I thought it was odd. I had a cousin Jeanette whom I had not heard much of for a while, though I knew she'd been to the UK and Europe less than two years before. Maybe she had been to China too. But my name was right, the phone number was obviously correct for me and Jeanette made sense too. </p> <p>So I called back. It was not cousin Jeanette at all, but another woman entirely.

My son's first written word.

My 4 year old son is learning to write and embracing the challenge with great enthusiasm. He is able to recognise some, but not all, individual letters, but unable to spell words. I had never seen him write letters together to form a word. The other day I asked him to decorate a paper bag which was to be used to hold a gift for my childhood friend's daughter. My son wrote a word, which was coincidently my childhood nickname. It was 4 letters long. I don't think my son knows this was my nickname (though he might, as people still call me it). I doubt he could spell it though, as he can't spell. So, my son's first ever written word was coincidently my childhood nickname. Just a random collection of letters that spelled out something with great meaning for me, his mum.

Family Birthday coincidence

Four members of my extended family share the same birthday: an uncle and his daughter on my father's side of the family and two cousins on my mother's side. All four of these individulas were born on April 25th, in different years of course. This has always struck me as a very interesting coincidence especially considering that these people are from both sides of my family.

An Encounter Remembered

After two years working with a colleague, we got chatting about cars, and he related the story of a rather unusual "traffic lights grand-prix" about 25 years earlier. I related a similar story, and we realised that we were describing the same event from the two different cars! We didn't know each other in those days, and were living about 100 miles from where we work now. I relate this story in a bit more detail, and try my own analysis of the probability calculations, on my blog: http://www.andrewj.com/blog/2011/what-are-the-chances-of-that/ What do you think?

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