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!

Flying to Sydney

In September 2000, my husband and I flew to Sydney for the 2nd week of the Olympics. After looking at all the flight choices, we chose a good deal, but it wasn't a straightforward route. We flew midweek from Manchester to Vienna and picked up a flight from Vienna to Sydney. We were at the front of the cabin on the right hand side and there was only one occupant in front of us, in the middle section. I could only see the back of his head and a bit of profile, but registered an an older, grey haired man. After a couple of hours, a meal was about to be served. The man began to play with the salt container, turning it around in his fingers. The movement caught my attention. There was little else to take my attention. Quite suddenly my stomach lurched as a moment of possible recognition came to me. A crew member came across to serve food and I asked her whether the name of the man was a Mr S? It was. After the meal, I went over to the man. " Hello Robert. I don't know if you remember me. I was your children's nanny in 1969." "Hello Rita", he answered immediately.

Marriage date revealed

In 1994 I moved to York to get married for a second time. The chosen date for a simple registry office ceremony, was Friday, January 28th at 2pm. This date was 100% down to me. I had to plan when it was convenient to finish work, allowing for unused holiday and also arrange a flat move from Buckinghamshire. There was also a church blessing to arrange back in Bucks two days later. Once the date was chosen, my partner, who was already living in York, went to the Registry Office to book the date. He needed to show his divorce certificate, but after an amicable divorce in 1987, he'd never bothered with a certificate, so he had to get one. When the letter containing a copy of the certificate arrived, it contained details of his first marriage. This had been a simple, unattended ceremony, done for family reasons, with his long-term live-in partner. No photos were taken, no party and the exact date had been long forgotten. It was...Friday, January 28th...1977...at 2pm. (We are still very happily married!)

The book that found me

About 40 years ago I was working in a freight forwarding office in London's Battersea and it was a bloody awful job, with little to commend it. At the time I had been trying to read all the books by an author named Eric Frank Russell (1950s British science-fiction author who was often been confused with being American). Nearly all of the books were out of print and my local public library was the first best happy hunting ground. Unfortunately, Lambeth public libraries didn't have all of the books written by Russell and I thought I would be forced to content myself with having read as many as possible. There was one title but was rather tantalising 'Men, Martians and Machines' and my best efforts had failed to turn this up. Sometimes you can try as hard as you can to achieve an objective and still fail. I was a teenager and still getting used to failure. Anybody who thinks that filling out a Customs and Excise form on a shipment of goods is a worthwhile and rewarding job needs a checkup from the neck up and I've just finished filling out a number of these when a colleague of mine came into work much later than normal.

elevens on a phone

On the 14th of August, 2008 I was on my way out the door to drive from Nelson Bay to Newcastle to fetch a friend and his wife, who were coming to stay with me for a week. All three of us are active in the so called 11:11 phenomenon, and had been for some years. The drive is about 50 minutes. As I reached the front door, my mobile phone bleeped, and I looked at it to see what I had received. I thought it was a text message, but on closer inspection it was some sort of error message. (I have a photo of this) But the really weird thing was that the "recipient" was +1111 I was a few minutes late arriving at the station, and concluded that the text message had arrived at pretty much the time I needed to leave, and my studying the text was responsible for my delay by a few minutes. I have never again received a text from "1111" although others have reported similar things.

elevens

Some eight years ago, on three nights in a row, I awoke only once. For some reason I chose also to raise my head to see my bed-side digital clock, which could not be seen from my pillow. The times of these incidents were 3:33, 11:22, and 4:44. It has never happened again, although I do regularly awake to digits such as 5:55 and 4:44 and 2:34, and 1:23. Clearly one cannot be clock watching while asleep. In more recent years my sleep pattern is more disrupted, but originally, eight years ago, I was a very sound sleeper.

Johnny Cash

I was editing a file in Word while listening to some of Johnny Cash's last recordings. Immediately after I had highlighted the word columns, which I had mistyped, he sang the word "columns". "It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy Planted on their columns now that binds me" (Gentle on my mind)

Lady Friends

A Couple of years after my wife died, I dated a woman who had the same day and month of birth as my wife, though the year was different. I am now dating a woman whose two daughters have the same first names as my two daughters though they are reversed in age.

Dreams and Trouble

Met a girl at a youth conference in 1999. We hit it off and stayed in touch even though we lived in different parts of the US. I got my first job to afford calling cards, and we talked frequently until around 2001. In 2003 I was living in Yellowstone National Park, and had a very vivid dream about being at a farmhouse and finding her in a bathtub full of blood in the kitchen; she said she was weak and tired, and really needed my help. I don't believe parapsychology, but I really missed her, so I called my father that day and got him to look for the number. The next day he was able to contact me with the number, and I called her parents. Her mother informed me that she had moved out and was living with her boyfriend, but I told her the story about the dream the night before and she said she would pass on the message. About five months later, I called her house again. Her mother told her I was on the phone and I could hear shrieking and crying in the background. After initial greetings, she revealed to me that I called her mother exactly two days after her boyfriend beat her into the hospital (she didn't tell her mother).

Babies

In 2005 I met a woman at an ante-natal class whom I recognised from an Italian night class we both attended approximately 3 years earlier. Our due dates were different and we each subsequently gave birth (both overdue) - me to a boy on 5th November, she to a girl on 11th November. We remained in touch and two years later told each other excitedly on the same day that we were pregnant again, this time with the same due date. We consequently each gave birth (both overdue) - me to a boy on 5th October and she to a girl on 11th October. In the late 1990's I was at university training to be a speech and language therapist. My work placements were on Wednesdays and were rarely cancelled. But one day my placement was cancelled, so I stayed in to study instead. When I took a break I flicked on the radio to hear Libby Purves introducing my friend on R4's Midweek. She had just published her first book, but I had not known she was scheduled to appear on the show.

Girlfriend

My girlfriend (1988) and I (1987) were born 10 months apart in the same hospital in Erlangen (Bavaria). I unknowingly attended her baptism in Eltersdorf (also Bavaria), as it simultaniously was my eldest sister's first communion. It was also her second sister's first communion. We met 21 years later on a party in college in Freising (also Bavaria).

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