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!

Home destroyed by tornadoes twice

March 8, 2012. My wife's cousin Brian lives on Yarbrough Road in Harvest, Alabama USA. Before being developed into a residential area, the land was used for farming and belonged to Brian's grandparents. Eventually the farmland became a suburban neighborhood and Brian kept a small plot where he lived in a pre-fab home (a.k.a. single-wide trailer home) since 2002, approx. In a matter of 11 months, his home was destroyed twice by tornadoes that landed on the same spot. First on April 27th, 2011; and then after a new pre-fab home was put in place, on March 2, 2012. I think that's a very unfortunate coincidence.<br /> Here's a link to a local newspaper's coverage of the second tornado: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/03/yarbrough_road_in_harvest_deal.html

Same primary school

Twice a year we stay for 5 nights at a small country hotel in the Lake District - 12 bedrooms. We often chat to other couples we meet for the first time. On our last visit we spoke with a couple staying for one night. Based on accent we knew they came from near Birmingham, as did my wife. We found that the other woman was born in Highfield Rd Blackheath around the time my wife's parents had moved into Highfield Crescent, Blackheath (1940). The two roads are separated by about 100 m of scrubland. They attended the same primary school in the early 1940s and recalled both the headmaster and several teachers. They think that inevitably their paths would have crossed as children and then not again until in the hotel, about 70 years later.

Events coincidence

I was on my way back from Strangeways Magistrates Court in Manchester to Liverpool in January 1970 in a car driven following a court case in which Jonathan Snow had been aquitted of disorderly behaviour following an incident outside White City Rugby Ground in either November or December the previous year when the Springboks had been playing and I had witnessed Snow's arrest and had agreed to be one of his defence witnessess. We were travelling in a car driven by Gavin Graham who had been a student union officer. On the Manucunian Way we were overtaken by a removal van owned by a firm called Sprinbok removals

A new encounter

We went to live in Spain in 1999 and were the first English people in the area. The following year we met a family in church who were also English/Irish and introduced ourselves. They had just purchased a Villa named Villa Berenice - which is also my name. As it is an unusual name, they had never heard of it before and were surprised that they then met someone with the same name. We became extremely good friends.

Simultaneous event w fiancé

My fiancé and I often have moments where we will bring up a topic that appears to be unrelated to the context of the situation. Last weekend we were walking in the park and at the same time commented how a certain software program for phone would be very useful. Neither of us design software or spend much time using novel phone programs. This seemingly random conversation topic occurs once or teice a week. This also happens frequently with phone calls outside of normative phone calling patterns.

a poetic anagram

Margate proudly boasts a beach shelter within which T S Eliot is supposed to have written parts of the The Waste Land, one of the most famous English poetic works. Right next to it is a large rather ugly concrete block on which is written in bold capitals: TOILETS TOILETS is an anagram of T S ELIOT.

Street name and great granddaughter

In the 1851 census my great grandmother, Eliza Amy Dawson (later Mrs Jeacock) was looking after the Bowling Green Inn Kenilworth on behalf of her father who was absent. The street where that inn existed was called Rosemary Hill. Three quarters of a century later, 20 years after her death, she had a great granddaughter, my elder sister, called Rosemary Hill. There cannot possibly be any explanation other than coincidence.

Book to read

In the 1940s I spent a few months as a patient in an RAF hospital, luckily quite near my parents' home so they were able to visit me quite frequently. One day while there I thought that I would like to read again a book called "Essays in Satire" by Ronald Knox and decided to ask my father, the next time he visited me, to bring it in on his next visit. That afternoon my father visited me, bringing with him "Essays in Satire" which he thought I might enjoy reading.

Long-lost aunt found after 40years on an antipodean boat

When I was about 4 (living in North London) my Geordie aunt (Elizabeth Bowman) was a '£10 pom' and emigrated to Australia (1958) sleeping on the deck. Never saw her again, nor post, nor photos... When I was 14, a woman sat opposite me on a bus in Watford (where I grew up) - her face looked familiar and she seemed to think from her expression I was familiar - we did not speak. When 24 (now living in Liverpool) I married a girl from Chester. Her elder sister married 2 years early and emigrated to New Zealand. When 44 and living in Berkshire, my wife and I went to NZ to see her sister. After about a week in Christchurch with them, we hired a car and drove off exploring. After several days wandering (driving aimlessly and booking motels) we ended up in Queenstown one afternoon. We just missed the last steam ferry on the lake (it was pulling away as we got to the port gate). After much umming and ahrring we decided to stay overnight. After a leisurley lie-in, we wandered down to the port and got the next steamer sailing there was (of several during the day). It was hot and we sat on the deck.

Wedding day/birthday coincidence

I went to a friend's wedding on 24 September 1983. There were about 120 guests. I sat at a table of about 12 people. 24 September was also my birthday - and as it turned out, the birthday of two other people sat at the same table.

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