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!

One Hotel, one night in Barcelona - twounrelated John Is!

My name is John I. A couple of years ago I was working on a project with partners in Barcelona. I would travel there on 2-3 occasions each year. During one visit I was booked into a hotel in the City Centre. When I went to reception to book in there I was given the pass card to my room. However, when I went to the room I found that it was occupied by a very pretty young lady and her boyfriend, whose name was .... John I. I is not a totally rare surname - probably a few 1,000 people in the UK. To my knowledge the other John I had no close relationship to me. I am orginally from the North East of England, County Durham, and the second John I was from Middlesborough in North Yorkshire. However, what is the chance of two unrelated people with the same name travelling to a foreign destination and both booking into the same hotel on the same evening! Comments please!

Vivien Foster

I do not have an excessively large circle of acquaintances and friends but I know of 3 men who have married twice and each of these 3 men have lost both wives to cancer. The second wives did not live in the same houses/areas as the first wives that died previously. I have now just read in last week's paper of the British swimmer Gemma Spofforth's mother dieing of cancer and since then her father's second wife has also died of cancer then the second wife's daughter has since died! This to me seems too much of a coincidence - could the men be "carriers" I realise this is a "loaded" conclusion that presumably would not be made general public knowledge! I do not wish to be quoted publicly i.e to remain anonymous. I am only interested in helping to find a cure to save pain and heartache.

In the middle of nowhere

In 1974 I was staying on a houseboat in Nishat Bagh, a small hamlet on the outskirsts of Srinagar in Kashmir. This is really the middle of nowhere in the foothills of the Himalyas on an extension of Dal Lake. The houseboat was moored on a bund which ran across the middle of the lake and very few people passed by except one or two locals. Early one morning I heard some voices and went out to investigate and lo and behold there was a Hindu swarmi accompanied by another Himdu and a British guy. The Brit happened to be a university friend of mine I had not seen for more than three years and he just turned up at that isolaterd spot on the bund on Dal Lake in the foothils of the Himalayas. His name was Noel and after we both got over the surprise and exchanged a few words he went off as the sawrmi's assistant and I have never heard or seen him since that day some 38 years ago in the "middle of nowhere"!

Lottery Numbers

These are two very amazing co-incidences between a friend and myself. The first happened about 3 years ago, when, running a lottery syndicate of 5 members. I asked one friend to select 6 numbers for entry on the UK Lotto. She picked 6 numbers, four of which were the same as four of my numbers which I have been using for several years. Three weeks ago, the same friend thought we should change our usual numbers on the Euromillions. I agreed and asked her to select 3 numbers and another number for the star. Then I phoned another member and asked her to select a number and one number for the star. I myself chose only one no. No. 44. These numbers we have used for three weeks now. On going through the folders for the lottery I noticed a piece of paper with 4 lines for the Euromillions which I and a relative had used about 5 years ago. One of the lines had 4 of the 5 numbers and both the star numbers as we had just chosen three weeks ago. For 2 people to have selected 3 numbers and 2 stars and me to have chosen no. 44 also is just amazing. Sadly, my friend who had chosen the 6 numbers for the lotto passed away last Friday. Freda

Rumbled at the Cinema

Deep in the mists of time, I was going out with a girl from work but we were keeping it quiet from the other staff. We opted to go to the cinema one night in the city centre - there were quite a few big cinemas available before the multiplex era and all had unassigned seating. We arrived during the adverts and were ushered to some seats in the dark - they were too close to the screen so we moved to the only other set of free seats. As we sat down, a voice behind said "Hello!" and there was my office colleague and his girlfriend sitting directly behind us. As our American cousins say "Busted!".

strange events

Seeing people in town that look like people i know,then seeing the person they look like sometimes 10 mins or an hour later,or sometimes a thought will come into my mind without thinking it,like i will see this person like my mum or a friend,and then i see them,my mobile phone is a classic event i sometimes know its going to ring seconds before it does,these things doint happen all the time but when they do i get a rush of energy, goose pimples.These events seem to happen in great numbers sometimes,then doint happen for ages,when they do happen i seem to get a migraine ither before a spate or after very strange,i doint take note of the time or day or date because if i do then i think they will stop happing,instead i try to keep myself open to them to see it they will lead me someware.......sorry if all this seems odd but its very real to me and i wish i could explain it a bit clearer.

Hitchhiking story

I'm Scottish and lived in Hamburg for a few years (1994-97). A little while ago my closest friend from that time was visiting me; we were chatting about my first time in Germany, years earlier (1983), while hitching across Europe. I had arrived in Hamburg late one night but had not been able to find a place to stay and had decided to keep going; a driver who picked me up asked me "why are you hitchhiking at 2am anyway?" and I'd explained, whereupon he invited me to come and sleep on his floor and continue my journey in the morning. We hadn't kept in touch apart from a postcard or two but his name had stuck in my mind (not a very common German name), and I mentioned it when telling my friend the story. My friend said "my best friend at school had that name!" and asked a couple of questions, such as where in Hamburg he had lived (I also remembered the street name), what he looked like etc. It turned out to be the same person: so in 1983 I'd stayed a night with an old school friend of the person who became my closest friend 12 years later, but didn't discover the fact until a further 15 years had passed.

Holiday coincidence

Two years ago (July 2010) my family and I (Me, Brian my wife Valerie and our son Adam), we live in Manchester, England, were holidaying at the Le Meridien Ile Maurice Hotel in Mauritius. During our 14 day stay, we met a married couple who were on holiday from Norway, staying at the same hotel, as us. We spent some time with them for an evening or so, and as they were going home before us, we did not see them at the hotel again. We did not exchange any information such as addresses or telephone numbers. Last year (July 2011), my family and I, still living in England, were holidaying at a hotel on the island of Rhodes at the Club Atlantica Aegean Blue. Some days into our short stay (which was only for seven days), a couple approached us and asked whether we had stayed at the Le Meridien Ile Maurice Hotel in Mauritius the previous year. We were astounded to realise that it was the same Norwegian couple, who were staying in the same country, the same resort, the same hotel, and at the same time period as us. Can the probability of this occurrence be quantified?

Dream that turns into reality

I was going through a difficult time in my life - I had decided to abruptly end a relationship and I was suddenly without a place to live, staying with friends and relatives. One night I had a dream - where I dreamed I was sleeping and having a dream! The dream inside the dream was about a spirit guide who silently showed me a turtle. The message was that this was my totem (just FYI, I am not Native American and do not pay much attention to things like that). In the dream I "woke up" and went into work where I ran into a co-worker I liked very much but did not get to see often because she worked irregular hours. This seemed very real. I mentioned the dream to her and she said that she had a book about totems and would bring it in for me to look at. With that I woke up. I felt a little confused by this, but actually went into work (as far as I know). I happened to actually see this co-worker that day and of course I mentioned the dream. She said "You know, I do have a book about Native Americans and there is a section about animal totems.

Many Were Killed

One more coincidence for the road. A few years ago I had a dream. It was the kind that is 'special' and knew I had to pay attention to it and not forget it. I was in a train with compartments and a side aisle with windows. It had slowed down to a crawl. It was night. Everybody was looking out of the open aisle windows, including myself. It was a terrible accident of some sort. Bloody bodies were laid out on the ground below us. A gruesome sight. In the distance I could make out a mountain range in the night backlit with some glow. I asked my neighbor what the light was. He said it was Buenos Aires. I woke up knowing this was one of those special dreams. Eleven days later, the newspapers reported that the worst rail accident had happened near Buenos Aires. Many were killed. I know...I was there in my dreams.

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