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!

Hannahs Rice Krispies

I was doing an online grocery shop on Friday evening. Alone in the house and I didnt write a shopping list. When I got to the cereal section I thought that I might like some rice krispes this week. A minute later I ordered cornflakes because they were likely to be eaten by more people in the house. Today (Monday) I came home from work to find that my daughter had bought a box of rice krispies because 'there were none in the cupboard and she just fancied them' I cant remember seeing an advert or talking about them!. Jut a coincidence I suppose!

Missing address book (Several coincidences)

Ten years ago we were visiting my daughter in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, when my son rang from Newcastle,UK. He was very fed up as his car had been broken into and among other things his address book had been stolen. At the end of our American holiday we were flying back to Heathrow when high winds caused the jumbo to be diverted to Newcastle airport. As I am a teacher, I used my address book and a public phone to ring the deputy head, Mrs Arnstein, to tell her of my predicament and that we were renting a car to get back to Essex. Five hours later, when we got home, my son rang to say "Mum, I have got you address book, why were you in Newcastle? ". I hadn't even missed it, but these are the amazing coincidences. 1. Someone at Newcastle airport had seen the page opened at A (for Arnstein), had seen an American address of my daughter Faye Arend on the same page, and rang her in the US to say that an address book was found at the airport. (She didn't know about the plane diversion). 2. Assuming it was her brother's address book because of the robbery rang him to say they had found his address book at the airport. 3.

Long lost relatives

Having made e mail contact and then spoken on the phone with Harry and his wife Linda (a brother of my husbands that up till that time we were not sure even existed) who lived in Aylesbury, Bucks, we were arranging to meet up about November time but then Linda (same name as my terminally ill sister)was diagnosed with leukaemia and so everything was posponed. In January we went on holiday to Egypt. One night sitting in a small bar I started chatting to a woman and her husband. As we are Notherners I happened to mention that they seemed to have a similiar accent to relatives we had spoken to on the phone but had never met. It turned out they too were from Aylesbury. As I told them the family story and how it had not been possible to meet up as Linda now had leukaemia the woman-Kath-(same name as me) asked their surname which I told her and she looked gobsmacked! She then said that she couldnt discuss the case but that she was Lindas leukaemia nurse! but that it seemed she was doing well and would recover.

Barrister coincidence

I was the instructing Solicitor in a case in Cornwall concerning a claim by a teacher for injury caused by her slipping on a dangerous path. I acted for the Defendant. The case proceeded to trial in the mid-1980s, the Claimant won and, as her injuries were particularly unusual, the case was reported in the specialist law reports for personal injury cases. The Barrister for the Claimant did well. Some five [5] years later I was attending a hearing in the Court of Appeal. The Strand, London. I happened to be discussing with a colleague the case from the 1980s, mentioned above. My case was delayed so I went to look for a case to watch. At the first open court, I looked in and saw a Barrister rise to his feet to address the Judge and it was the same Barrister who acted in the 1980s case - who I had never thought of again since the 1980s case, let alone seen him. A coincidence?

Harmonica player

In mid-2001 I was on an overnight course and chatting to others on the course [who I had never met before]. Music arose and one colleague mentioned he had played the harmonica on the 1960's hit 'My boy lollipop' by 'Millie Small' - some 40 years previously. I then went to my hotel bedroom and listened to a Radio 2 programme presented by 'Suggs', the lead singer for 'Madness', who played the Millie Small track and when the track had finished asked the audience to let him know who the harmonica player was on the track! This seemed like a 'coincidence' to me - and still does.

Movie Coincidence

On Saturday March 17th 2012 at night my wife was driving myself and some friends of ours back from a car show in Myrtle Beach, SC. I put in a CD to listen to. We were talking about Bob Seager and a song we were listening to Some of that Old Time Rock and Roll came on. One of the friends said that that was the song in the movie Risky Business with Tom Cruise. She stated that was one of the first movies that made him popular. I said that I remembered him in a movie along time ago when he was younger. I started to try to remember the name of the movie and started naming off some other actors that played in the movie. I started describing some of the scenes and started talking about one of them being called Pony Boy and a little bit about what the movie was about. The other friend used his mobile phone to do a search to see what movie it was and then said it was The Outsiders filmed in1983. My wife is a good bit younger than me so I told her we would have to get the movie sometime so she could see it. It is not like I have ever mentioned this movie before to her and we have been together over 15 years. Not a movie everyone brings up in conversation over movies.

A chance encounter with a former neighbour

My wife and I were holidaying in a national park in the middle of the Texas wilderness, on the border with Mexico. This place was truly the middle of nowhere, and had maybe 20 or so client-facing staff. One evening, we were served by a waiter with an English accent. It turned out that he and I had grown up four houses apart on the same street in the UK.

OPEN TO CHANCE

I open myself up to chance and randomness a number of times each day. Maybe this is partly why I have experienced so many coincidences; this is the 7th I have described here. This morning on the train I was talking to a man from Sudan who was listening to some music, from Sudan. There is a singer, Abdel Gadir Salim, who I enjoy from Sudan but I could not remember his name at the time. The man on the train was listening to Abdel Kariem (pronounced Abdul Karim). I had not heard of that singer but earlier this morning I was writing to a friend about a newly released CD by an influential Indian singer whose best recordings were made 1934 -1935, but never released until this month outside of India. (He died in 1973.) The name of the influental Indian singer was Abdul Karim Khan.

Parellel Lives???

Last year, while googling I accidently touched an American Photographer/Actress (not well known) name on my I Pad which took me through to her WIKI page. Being interested in Photography I had a look on her main website and noticed her Date of Birth was 3 days before my own. On reading some Questions and Answers she had done in some interviews I was surprised at the number of personality traits, though process, dress, food, film, music tastes etc. she had that were similar to my own. She also went through an emotional time period 2004/5 due to relationship problems at a similar time to myself. Her partner's birth date was 3 days later than my partners birth date (different years). During the time period 2001/4 when she was in a relationship I used to get the odd comment that I had a look of her partner who is also on American TV. Our careers elevated in a similar time period. We both have long first names that can be abbreviated into shorter names for a boy or girl. We both have four letters for our middle name and seven letters in our surname. There must be lots of us very similar in the World but its still weird when you come accross someone who is.

Tumbleweed

My brother and I were talking while our radio was tuned to a local rock station, playing the latest songs. Laughing, I told my brother about my boyfriend's bushy dead plants which rolled around his balcony in the winter wind off Lake Michigan. I remarked that he was the only person in Chicago with tumbleweed. At the moment I said "tumbleweed" the song "Tumbling Tumbleweed" began to play on the radio. We looked at the radio in amazement! Not a song you'd hear on a rock station. Looking back, I wish I had called the station to ask why they played that song. I believe it was an old Gene Autry version. In any case, it was a very uncanny coincidence.

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