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!

Fathers seved on same ship in WW2

When going out to work on a cruiseship as part of a two-man photographic team with a guy I just met that day, we discoverd that our fathers had both served on the the auxiliary aircraft carrier HMS Battler during the war.

The unknown guest

1980. I had dinner in a friend's home in Stockwell, London. There are other guests I have never met and I am useless with remembering names. Twenty years later I am in Inverness airport. The departure lounge is crowded but a face seems oddly familiar. I would not have approached the guy had my travelling companion not urged me to do so, as I was not confident after twenty years and a single meeting that he was indeed someone from the dinner. He was, and as he didn't recognise me or my companion (who was also at the dinner), he was stunned - and was unaware that our mutual friend had sadly died a few years after the dinner. But I still have no idea who he was.

Strangers on a plane

1980's. I'm on a plane to The Gambia for a holiday. The guy beside me is going to the Ivory Coast where he lives and works. We chat and he talks about his business and his charity work. He gives me his business card as I depart the plane. About ten years later I am on a mentoring residential course with a diverse group of senior people from both public and private sectors. One of the attendees happened to be the top man of the organisation in which my (late) partner was a small cog and I amuse him with my insider knowledge. We chat more widely. He says he comes from the Ivory Coast. The only other person I had knowingly met from there was the guy on the plane. Yep, the guy on the plane had been this man's mentor when he was a youngster. He does not believe the coincidence until I show him the business card - which by chance was still in my wallet.

Our mutual friend

1975. I worked in a London lab prior to studying at Exeter uni. During the summer vacation two female students from my department went on a European rail trip. During a ferry crossing of the Adriatic Sea they got talking to a another young lady. 'Oh, there's a guy in our department who used to work in that hospital' they said. The guy was me, and the person they were talking to was the person who I'd handed over to on leaving the lab.

Wrong Number

I had recently moved into a new house and my friend Susan was helping me with some decorating. The phone rang and the caller said 'Hi dave - Is Susan there?' I passed the phone to Susan but it was a wrong number. (& The previous occupants weren't called Dave & Susan.)

Dire Straits

I was driving in the car listening to 'Sultans of Swing' on CD. I ejected the CD half way through but it kept playing !!!!! No it didn't ! - the same tune was being played on radio at exactly the same point.

consecutive car number plate

Yesterday evening we drove to Portsmouth to celebrate my daughters birthday. On the way to the restaurant we were over taken by a car with a similar number plate to ours. On closer inspection it proved to be the exact car number plate that preceded our own, meaning that our two cars were then in number order on the road. What is even more unusual about this is that I bought my car in Leicester, not in the Portsmouth area!

Birthday coincidence

My wife, Lucy born on 12.07.1973 shares the same birthday as her elder sister Susie born 12.07.1971 and younger brother Angus, born 12.07.1975. The parents produced no other offspring. All were born in Scotland and probably Edinburgh specifically.

Morbid coincidence

3 years ago my daughter died of cancer, she was aware of the outcome of the illness and prepared her own funeral. She requested that her daughters played ' fields of gold' by Eva Cassidy as the cortège entered the chapel a midday. 12 months later the anniversary fell on a Wednesday. We always met friends on a Wednesday for coffee. This particular day the meeting was cancelled. I had planned to take my wife to a shopping outlet some 30 miles away one the previous Monday, but due to the cancellation of the coffee morning, we decided to go on the Wednesday. Just before midday we needed a comfort stop, so we found a loo. Upon exiting the loos at 12 o'clock, the public address system was playing ' fields of gold' by Eva Cassidy. Exactly 12 months to the date and time. We both cannot quantify this remarkable coincidence Mr Duncan Rea-Palmer

A Cluster Of Coincidences

On Friday, I read an article on the BBC website by Jonathan Amos about a 'Cosmic coincidence on the road to Glenelg' ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/19979798 ). Well, this struck me as being coincidental as I'd posted a story on this website about a coincidence involving Glenelg. I thought I'd point this out to Jonathan Amos, so found this site again, to find a link to send ( http://understandinguncertainty.org/user-submitted-coincidences/friendly-face-middle-nowhere ). Whilst on this site, I saw pictures of David Speigelhalter, and read a couple of his stories. The very next day, his recently familiar face appeared on the BBC iPlayer site with a link to a programme he'd made ... another little coincidence. It doesn't quite end there either, as whilst watching the show on the iPlayer, David was talking to a well known personality about this web-site, and that personality has a holiday property in Glenelg, and I actually saw him there just after the time of my original coincidence story. A bit convoluted I know, but interesting (to me anyway).

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