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!

name, place, occupation snap (after watching tails you win!)

having always been fascinated by co-incidence, jung and the i'ching, synchronicity, randomness, chaos and chance i watched your program (tails you win) on iplayer with great enjoyment. i was struck by your collecting of co-incidences as i remembered a story about a man collecting co-incidences who found that they increased in incidence as a result :D then headed out to meet up with a very special friend named stuart who used to live in london but is originally from canada (specifically calgary) and is a musician. like me, he's mad about cats. he's now living in berlin so it's rather unusual that i get to see him and i was heading out to see him at a rare gig in london. on the way out i saw a light on in the downstairs flat and guessed that the new neighbours had moved in, so stopped briefly to introduce myself and explain about lights/garbage/recycling and general welcome to the 'hood. :) the door was answered by a lovely young man ... from canada (near calgary) named ... stuart ... who is a musician ... engaged to a girl named ... cat (catherine). :D trippy. :D

birthday coincidence

my husbands mother, brother & myself (his wife) all share the same birthday: 23rd february

not ringing

I called my fiance and he called me at exactly the same time,none of our phones rang,and we both spoke to each other,no ringing of any phone,yet we were connected at the exact second we dialed each others number, what are the chancess of this happening.

Finding someone after twenty years

I still think its pretty off knowing where someone is living after twenty years . And getting a location name popping into my head for months then an address appears on the net with familiar name and then see it matches exactly with what you wrote down. Surely the odds on that are what?

Donald Rumsfeld Quote

During the day (yesterday Wednesday 24th October) a colleague of mind showed me a quote in a book on Plain English, it was the Donald Rumsfeld quote about "Knowns and Unknowns". We had been discussing legal drafting and ambiguous language; he showed it to me jokingly.... That same evening I sat down to watch "Tails You Win", having recorded it a few days before...in the middle of the program there is the "Knowns and Unknowns" clip of Donald Rumsfeld. Not that amazing, but as it is totally connected to your actual program I felt it worthy of note!

Mr Richard Evans

i telephoned my fiancee..but unknown to me , she had just done the same thing , and as i phoned i heard the digits click down , and heard her voice.!! non of our phones rang as such.......what are the odds of this..??

Same name, place, car, time and place!

Hello David, I caught your program on BBC4 last night and I wanted to add to your ‘portfolio’ of coincidences. Here’s one that may rival your best yet! To give you some unnecessary background, I was selling a radio-controlled helicopter via ebay and I got an enquiry from a guy that stayed a fair distance away. Me and my wife were planning a shopping trip to a town that was kind of central between us and the enquirer, so we arranged to meet. I gave him my name and description of my car along with the time I’d be sitting in the carpark of the shopping centre place. The enquirer, let’s call him Dave, gave me the same details; name of Dave, car was a Mitsubishi Shogun and he’d be there around 10 o’clock. I was in the car park waiting for Dave to arrive whilst the wife was in looking at curtains or something equally banal. The time approaches 10 o’clock and a Shogun pulls into the car park and stops right in front of mine. I get out and go to say hello to Dave. The conversation goes like this; Me – Hello, Dave? Dave – Eh, yes. Me – OK, come and see what I’ve got (we then head around to the boot of my car, which I open to reveal the helicopter).

Telepathy Parallel or just plain odd

Hello I dont know how to categories my eexperinces as it covers quite a number of things. Top of the list is someone i had not seen for twenty years i seem to know where they were living. i had a history with someone i knew from my colleges day where odd stuff kept happening, eg i bought a japanese old print card for my collection, the next day my friend sent me the same design card without me telling them about it, another time was my record deck packing in but speakers were ok the next day at a party someone stole her speakers and she asked me where to get new ones, mine were suddenly available for her, anohet occasion not to be a nuisance to her i went to somewhere else but ended up on her doorstep by accident,, ok i lost touch with that person in early eighties and now in temp housing, whilst writing down a recollection of finding her against odds in a corwd after breaking mt spectacles something odd happened where a location kept opping into my head over and over again, time passed and her address appeared on the net , to my surprise where she lived was same location that appeared in my mind,, so it looks like whilst recalling finding someone against the odds..the same thing

Sid Swift

A workmate brough in his apprenticeship articles and it showed the address where he lived at the time (1991). It was the same address as one of my oldest friends who bought it when my workmates family moved shortly after.

Calling each other at exactly the same time

My girlfriend and I are constantly calling each other at the exact same time, or one is calling and the other is sending a text message, and this has been going on virtually from the day we became romantically involved over 3 years ago. In addition, we know what each other is thinking and often begin to say the exact same thing at the exact same time.

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