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!

Jack-in-the-Box

In 1977 there was a hit single by American soul group The Moments called 'Jack-in-the-Box' which I absolutely loathed with a passion - I absolutely could not stand this tune. One evening I was sitting in my family home watching Top of the Pops with my younger sister when this dreadful song was played and I started to to cover my ears. My sister wanted to write something so asked me to pass her the pencil that was sitting on a table to my side and clearly belonged to another family member. I picked the pencil up but before I passed it over I happened to glance at the printing on the side, but it wasn't the maker or the lead type. The only words thereon were... "Jack-in-the-Box"! 35 years later it still sends a shiver up my spine.

A small world

We emigrated from UK to Canada and were selling our car. One of the guys who came to view it, asked why were were selling it and we told because we were emigrating. He asked where and we told him Canada and he said, 'Oh, I have a cousin there!" Turns out his cousin was our friend who was helping us emigrate and whose house we were going to stay in. To prove it to him, we showed him our visas with his cousin's name on them. It sure is a small world!

Chance Meeting in Kobe Japan

When I was an apprentice Engineer, working on a ship in the Far East, my ship had just berthed in Kobe, Japan (One of the largest ports in the Japan). I went ashore & headed for one of the numerous bars with a few shipmates. We went in and sat down at the counter. I ordered a round of beers. When I finished ordering, the guy on the next stool turned round & said "What are you doing here ?" He was the older brother of a friend I'd been at college with. He was also a ship's Engineer and his ship was only in port for 6 hours, so the odds of us meeting up must have been pretty long - Needless to say, a few beers were sunk to celebrate this "Casablanca" moment.

FA Cup - Only 3 chance meetings

Last year Stoke City reached the Semi-Final of the 2011 FA Cup. Although a North-West Londoner by birth, for no other reason than Gordon Banks played for Stoke & I fancied myself as a goalkeeper I had supported Stoke from afar since the age of 8. Now living just outside Dover in Kent and having secured a ticket for the Clubs biggest match in nearly 40 years, I set off by train to the Smoke. Having reached Baker Street Tube Station, I got onto the Met Line train and there I met two fellow Stoke Supporters, (one of whom also had his young daughter with him). When we got to Wembley, we separated & went off to watch the match against Bolton Wanderers. After the game, having won 5-0, I returned to Wembley Park Station & got into the first available Tube train carriage & who should be there, but the same two guys (& daughter) I'd met on the train on the way to the stadium. Having pinched each other a few times (Stoke don't win 5-0 very often), we then chatted all the way back to Baker Street. When we parted, I said "If I can get a ticket, I'll see you in a month's time for the Final".

Triple word coincidence

I was sitting on a bus passing through East Dulwich, not a route I take too often or know, reading an autiobiography of Rupert Everett who coincidentially shares my date of birth - 29th May. I was reading how while his mother was pregantn with with him she was decorating - painting some part of the house - not long before giving birth. My mother too had been painting a door when she was noticed to be having contractions. I was then just musing how coincidental it was as well that his mother's doctor was called Jarvis, and I had been born in the Jarvis Nursing Home in Guildford when at that moment, I looked up and discovered we were passing Jarvis Road. That was totally amazing, 3 coincidences - reading a book about someone with my same date of birth - except the year - I'm younger than Rupert(!), with mothers undertaking same activity when about to give birth, then reading a name that not only meant something to me, but also was just outside the window. What amazing coincidences I thought - and utterly, completely, meangingless - just very surprising.

buried bike

in 1978 i went digging for old bottles in a farm rubbish tip twenty miles from where i live. i had dug down two or three feet when i found an old number plate BBO 450 . I instantly recognised the registration number from old family photos . BBO 450 was the reg number of my uncles old triumph . Apparently he sold the bike to a farmer in the late fifties .

ID Card

When in the RAF in Cyprus, I spent some time as an Air Cadet Instructor. During their annual summer camp some of us went swimming in the sea. After a while I saw something on the sea bed and found it was an ID card for one of the cadets on the camp. At the time these were made of card that had been laminated on both sides and it was in a pretty sorry state. I gave the ID card to him and said told him where I had found it. He then checked his pockets and produced an ID card with his details on it. We then realised that the one I had found was the one he had lost during the previous year's camp.

on the same flight

I joined a flight from Birmingham to Amsterdam, took my window seat and started reading my book. As others took their seats I was aware of the person taking the seat next to me. "Hello Malcolm" he said. I immediately recognised him as Mahmoud who had worked for me seven years earlier. We had not been in contact for some years. I live in Nottinghamshire, and Mahmoud in Leicester, so it's reasonable that we might use Birmingham airport for travel. From time to time I do see people I know at local airports. However, what are the odds of a former colleague or someone I know taking an adjacent seat on the same flight?

lucky coincidence

I had kept horses as a child and as an adult I rode once a week on a borrowed horse with a friend. We only had a Thursday afternoon to ride due to childcare issues and rode for several years quite happily all over the Weymouth bridlepaths. One day my friend and I had happened to cut through a housing estate where we didn't usually go. We were just strolling along enjoying the sunshine not really talking about anything in particular when out of the blue I turned to my friend and said " what I would like ideally is a horse of my own that I could have on a permanent loan around 14.2hh' then as we turned the corner we both saw an old friend walking towards us. She said hello and the next words to come out of her mouth were " you don't know anyone who wants a 14.2hh pony on a permanent loan do you?" Well my friend and I just looked at each other in amazement, and to cut a long story short I had that pony on loan for the next ten years.

World family

A few years ago we travelled to South Africa for the summer, working with some churches in Durban. For part of the trip we were hosted by families from one of the churches. We stayed in the home of a lovely retired couple who were researching their family tree. While they were showing me some of the paperwork I realised their family name was the same as my grandmother's maiden name. They were able to show me where she was on their family tree - distant cousins. We travelled half way round the world to stay with family we didn't know we had!

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