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!

Tape or radio

Several years ago I was playing some music off cassette in my car. I ejected the tape to listen to the radio, for a change. The track I was listening to carried on, and I thought the tape had failed to eject. What I then realised was that BBC Radio 2 was playing the same track at exactly the same time as me - synchronised so accurately that the beat and the lyrics weren't interrupted at all.

Safari Photos

Myself (Martin) and my wife (Tina) went on our first holiday abroad in 1991, a 5 weeks overland safari in Africa. I took around 800 photos in the days before digital. It took a fortune to develop them and a long time to put the best ones in albums. I promised some friends in London that I would meet up with them to show them the results and I arranged to meet them in London in a pub near Trafalgar Square. After a few drinks I went to the bar to get the next round in. While jostling at the crowded bar the person next to me send "Hello, what a coincidence!!". It was Jessica who was on the the same trip in Africa. We had met in Africa, hadn't kept in touch, she lived in Telford, we lived in Sheffield and we had bumped into each other at the bar in a pub in London. And I had the photos from the trip with me!! The pub was so crowded that it was even quite easy to miss each other in the same room if we hadn't gone to the bar at the same time. What are the chances of that? The second coincidence about this trip is that the following year we were in Botswana, another African country but one we hadn't visited before.

mr martin cooper

Three pairs of people share thier birthdays with a ep mother 31/01 is this common or are we due to be recognised?

Meeting my husband.

I went travelling to Australia with a friend as part of a round the world trip. We stayed at a backpackers hostel in Sydney then continued on to New Zealand and she then went home and I went back to Sydney to try and find a job. As I didn't know anyone in Sydney I returned to the same hostel we'd previously stayed at. When I got there the reception had closed for lunch 5 mins before. With a heavy rucksack I decided to go next door and booked into the neighbouring hostel and there I met my husband to be (who lived 30mins away in the UK). We would not have met if the hostel hadn't shut for lunch.

Cinema coincidence

Many years ago a conversation was struck up at work during a cigarette break about cinema-going experiences. My story was that approximately 8 years previously I had been to the opening screening of Rattle and Hum, the U2 film, at a cinema in Aldershot, The audience consisted on me, one other man sat a few rows in front of me to the right and a couple sat a few rows behind me. One of my acquaintances looked open-mouthed at me and said that he was the other man in the cinema. Confirming that it was a Saturday afternoon and that there were just three other people there. We were amazed at the coincidence. For a few weeks we reveled in this. Now that you would assume would be enough for some people. However, a few weeks later, we were discussing the story again, still not really believing it when my friend uttered the immortal line "To make this even more amazing, it would be great if the next person through that door (we were in the fire escape, smoking again) was one of the other people there". A few seconds later another colleague came out for a smoke and we asked her if she'd had any strange cinema-going experiences.

'I Know You!'

In the late 1960's we were driving around an area of Bodmin Moor trying to find Trebartha Hall where my Father had been stationed in 1942. We knew were it should have been but couldn't find it After a long fruitless exploration of narrow, deserted, lanes we were on the verge of giving up. My Father had to pull the car onto the verge to let a solitary approaching vehicle pass. As it drew alongside it stopped and the driver said through the open window, 'I know you!' The driver had been at Trebartha Hall with my Father and hadn't seen him since. This chap had married a local girl and was able to tell us exactly where the now demolished hall had been. That had been virtually the only vehicle we'd seen during our search in that quiet area.

Missing Diary

On the 60th anniversary of a famous battle I tried to track down my Father's diary of events. He'd sent one copy to his immediate Officer and another to the Major in charge of the whole unit. The Officer couldn't find the diary. The Major had apparently lived on the South Coast, I managed to track down his widow still in that area. The Major's papers had been sent to his son, a doctor like his father. The Major's widow told me her son, who could have been anywhere in the world, lived on the outskirts of my small Cheshire town. After searching for months the 60 year old document could be on my doorstep! Practising doctors are careful about social contacts so I wasn't surprised to get no reply to my letter. New neighbours opposite, while waiting to move in, were renting a house a couple of miles away. To break the ice I told them the diary saga. They were amazed because their rented house was adjacent to the doctor's and they had chatted over the fence!

Happening in the Algarve

My wife and are were holidaying in Vilamoura Portugal last year. One day we decided to take the bus along the coast to Albufeira for the day, we walked through the town and along the beach, then took the large lift at the far end to the top and sat on a viewing platform looking back towards the town. We then remembered a former single neighbour, who had said they were hoping to spend more time in the Algarve and we wondered which part? Then casually glancing to the next seat . . . Yes you've guessed it. . . he was sitting on the next bench also looking back towards the town!! He also was speechless when we made our presence known to him.

Two girls and a professor

So I'm travelling 240 miles to be with my two lovely girls - together - for the first time in about 4 years and just before I arrive on Thursday afternoon the 28th march, an old friend joins us on the radio - one David Spiegelhalter. Tracey and Andrea recalled happy memories at Jubilee Gardens?

Talking to Jack

In June 2006, I went to the Green Man in Rackheath for a meal with my partner and to listen to some live jazz. The people playing turned out to be my former trumpet teacher Dave Amis, who I hadn't seen for 15 years and on drums the late Jack Parnell of Muppet Show fame. It was really nice to catch up with Dave and we also spoke to Jack, specifically about his musical contribution to The Muppet Show. Less than a week later, whilst I was at work, my partner Chris got a phone call. It was Jack Parnell returning a message that had been on his ansaphone, from a Japanese couple who wanted their son to learn the drums. Somehow he had dialled our number. Obviously this confused Chris somewhat. He told Jack that he must have the wrong number, but Jack read out the number that had been written down and it was indeed our number. It got even more confusing because then Chris realised that some huge coincidence had just taken place but thought that Jack was in fact Dave, my old trumpet teacher. Chris then started talking to Jack as if he was Dave, saying we had seen him last week in the Green Man and that he used to teach me, his partner. This freaked Jack out somewhat!!!!

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