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!

Cousins

My daughter was born in 2002; after 3 years a male cousin was born on 17th Feb, but then after 2 years another male cousin was born on 17th June and finally, again after 2 years, a third male cousin was born on 17th Jul. All of them are from different families (different uncles and aunties). :)

Kitchen coincidence

We visited some friends who just bought a bakery in a city just north of us. We don't visit them often but had a morning to check out the place. When we got the tour of the bakery, they mentioned a woman who rents the kitchen to make baked goods of her own on the side that she sells at farmers' markets. About a week later, a co-worker next to me had her sister visit with her kids at work (we work in a city probably 15 miles south of the bakery). After her sister had left, she shared some cookies she had made. I asked if she made them for fun or as a business, and she said she makes them as a business. I mentioned my friends who have a woman come in to rent space from them to also do this. I kept asking more questions and we came to the conclusion that it was the same person! That woman who rents is my co-worker's sister. I find this so unlikely that her sister happened to come in to visit and that we happened to go visit the bakery, and she happens to be the same person who leases that kitchen space.

Three degrees of separation

While visiting my sister-in-law on the Greek island of Spetses, summer of 2000, we ate in a restaurant where an English family was also dining. Their tow-headed 3-year-old son, Harry, was wandering around the restaurant making friends with everyone. Next day on the boat back to Athens, we saw the family again, and I fell to talking with Harry's dad. When he heard that we were from the Philadelphia area, he said, "I don't suppose you know a Quaker couple, John and Mary Smith, do you?" (Names changed) While I didn't know them personally, it turned out that I had taught their granddaughter in a Quaker school.

I'm not a cold reader

Thirty years ago I went on a coach tour of New Zealand. A few days into the tour at one of the stops I started chatting with a girl who was about 18 / 19. After about 5 minutes, out of the blue I guessed she was Roman Catholic (not very hard), her father was in the building trade and that she was the youngest in the family with no sister and three older brothers. Turned out that she only had two older brothers. Everything else was exactly right. Just a very good guess? I'll admit she seemed a bit young for her age. Unconscious cold reading by me? Did someone tell me about her? (Not that I recall and there were more than 25 other women on the coach.) Was she very like someone else that I knew? (Well maybe, but nobody comes to mind.) Was I a real psychic? (I don't think so.) So where did such detail come from?

Related Divorce

We had friends who divorced. Yukk!!! However, my wife spent 'hours' on the phone consoling, comforting and talking to the woman. It really annoyed me as it went on for ages. Within a year, after 20 years of married life, with three children, my wife started legal proceedings to get our jointly owned home and petition for divorce. What are the odds of a marriage ending after 20 years and in the same year, a female friend gets divorced? Is this a pure coincidence? PS, my wife is a teacher, the same as her friend who divorced. We also had a 'liberated' sex life years before the estrangement. Finally, my wife was going through the menopause. I happen to think menopausal women should carry a 'Health Warning', They become deranged but we get no warning.

Triple birthday( nearly quadruple)

I have a younger sister who was born on 25 may 2001 A younger brother who was born on 25 may 1983 An older sister who was born on 25 may 1979,, all 3 on same day years apart and myself born on 18 may 1980, 'a week premature'

Telephone numbers coincidence

My private and work mobile and also my work landline all end in 509

Similarities in names, enrollment no, school, birthdate etc

a guy at my university who had the same last name as mine, but i didnt take much notice until i was interested in the person myself. then when i got to know him i found out lots of similarities. he was in the same school i was once i.e Happy Home Secondary School in Karachi. my enrollment no at the university was the same as his AR-032 but he was in the senior batch. his first name is the same as my father's combined with the same last name he has the same full name. according to our numerology profile all the most important numbers in his profile and mine are exactly the same; expression number 6, destiny number 8. i was wondering if this meant anything. and there have been uncountable events where i coincidentally meet him just when i think of him. my thesis research in my final year led me to the same topics he had been researching in his thesis, though my hypothesis and his had no link whatsoever. then in my thesis jury the same jurer that had attended his jury.

Double Holiday coincidence

Summer of 2012 whilst on holiday in Christchurch Dorset I bumped in to my friend from the same town 4 hours away , and he was looking for an obscure film "The Guard" which I was taking to the post box. Dannie

Babies born on their due date

Both of my children were born naturally without inducement on the due date predicted by my doctor. They are not twins - if that's what you were thinking, there is 10 years between them. I have no other children. I don't know anyone who has even had one child on the due date given!

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