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!

Relationship by marriage

I met a lady called "Alex" real name Irma Alexander in 1993 through the Liberal Democrats following the Christchurch Parliamentary by-election. We became friends and I saw quite a lot of her. In 2001 we were together following the General Election when Annette Brook MP first won the seat in which Alex lived. Annette's agent was staying with Alex while completing the election expenses documentation. During a conversation, Alex told me that the agent was about to travel to Sweden. we then discovered that we both had connections with Sweden and finally discovered that our brothers both called Brian though Alex's brother was usually known as Bill, were married to sisters! We had known each other for 8 years, even discussing the Harrow area where we had both lived at different times without discovering that we were linked in this way.

Noh !

My husband and I pondered over the final clue in the crossword; ' Traditional Japanese dance ' and eventually came up with the answer Noh . Moments later my husband went into his office to see if he had sold any books ( he has an online academic book business so has several thousand sitting on shelves around the room ). Taking the book from the shelf it fell open to a page ( complete with picture) of the traditional Japanese dance of Noh !

New Zealand, here we come!

Very good friends of ours have just gone to tour NZ for six weeks. Today, in the post, a pensioner's newsletter arrived for my husband featuring an article about an ex-colleague of his who has gone to NZ to set up a B and B and plant a vineyard. I had just finished reading the article when the phone rang. Who should it be but friends of mine, ex-colleagues, phoning completely out of the blue, whom we last saw just before they embarked upon a five month tour of NZ. Small world?

Telepathy or Synchronosity?

I retired from the Isle of Man Civil Service in July 2007. Shortly afterwards the Government State Pension Office wrote to say that they could not provide me with a projection or statement of my future State Pension entitlement because the regulation were about to change, but they would contact me in due course. I didn't hear from them again. With my State Pension becoming due in June this year I decided on Monday this week to phone the pensions office. The man who answered the phone asked for my name and National Insurance number. When I provided this information he told me that he had, that very morning, been preparing a letter informing me of my state pension entitlement and promptly was able to read from the letter he had in front of him. I could have phoned at any time in the last 4 years or next 4 months, but I phoned the day he wrote the letter!

Long voyage "home"

I had (since family holidays in 1956 to the 1970s) wanted to live in the Isle of Man. In 1982 I bought a small sailing boat (GP14) then 13 years old, in need of repair & modification. I later sold it to two teachers in Sale, Greater Manchester. In 1993 I moved to live and work in the Isle of Man, settling in the small fishing village of Port St Mary. On walking my dog round the village, passing the "small boat park" by the harbour I found the GP dinghy I had sold eleven years earlier. The repairs I had made and it's high riding trailer were unique and quite distinct. It had been donated to the local Sea Scouts by a teacher from the local Secondary School. It was unlikely that such an old and worn out boat would have survived, even more unlikely that it would have turned up in the Isle of Man, but amazing that, with 7 harbours to choose from, it should arrive in Port St Mary before me.

Greek encounter 1972

During an overland "World Trip" by minibus, August 1972, driving down a long, straight road in Greek Mani Peninsula with no turnings, totally barren landscape, in VW camper van, my travelling companion and I spotted two girls hitch hiking and stopped to give them a lift. It turned out to be the sister of a friend of ours (and her travelling companion) from Manchester, UK. Our friend Michael Wood later became the TV historian. We had visited him in Oxford on our way to the ferry to Denmark in July 72. This is the earliest of three coincidences - will post the other two separately. Alec M.

Deaths 100 years apart

My mother's elder sister has recently died on 31st December 2011 and was aged 102 years and 2 months. My late mother and her twin sister were born on 30th December 1911. Sadly their mother died a few hours later on 31st December 1911. So my aunt died 100 years to the day after her mother.

Born in the same bed

When I first met my future wife, I was a high school student in Northern Germany. One day a lovely new classmate arrived from India. We got to know each other better, and after a few months started dating. During our conversations I learnt a lot about India from her, and was fascinated by her stories of growing up in a world that was so different from mine. My imagination went wild, and I pictured her being born and raised in a tropical country with a bustling culture. A year later, she was going to visit India again for the first time. While she packed her suitcase, I glanced at her passport. To my astonishment, I found out that she was born in the same village as me. As it turned out, her German mother, though living in India at the time, wanted to deliver her first child in Germany. And so she'd travelled back to the place where she grew up and had her first daughter in a small cottage hospital in the tiny village of Hage. The maternity unit (if it could be called this at the time) only had a single delivery bed - the same one in which I was to be born a year later. What a surprise and coincidence I thought!

Hospital Warning!

On 28th February 1996, I was with my children and my mum in our local library in Staines, Middlesex. This was a common occurance as my children loved books. My mum picked up a random book to have a look at it and a piece of paper fell out from it onto the floor. I was standing next to her and so I picked it up and it had the name 'Elliot Ward' written on it. We thought nothing more of it and placed it back inside the book. The following morning, 29th February, my mum was on duty (she was a district nursing sister, now retired) in Sunbury-on-Thames and there was ice on the ground. She slipped and broke her femur and was rushed to the hospital for surgery. When we were able to visit her she was recovering on 'Elliot Ward'. Sara Galvin

Small World

In 2009 we lent our Mazda campervan to Simon & Kerrie from New Zealand and in the following January we used their Toyota campervan in NZ. The internet forum specific to the Mazda we own has several NX members and one who learned where we would be based (Lake Rotoiti near Rotorua) said he would try and meet up with us as he only lived about an hour away - but in the end it didn't prove possible to meet. About 3 months after we returned Simon and Kerrie were looking to buy another car and wanted a Toyota Harrier and found one for sale in Katikati about a hour away from where they live. They drove up to view the car and noticed a Mazda parked next to it on the drive. After trying the car and agreeing to buy it Simon mentioned to the seller that they had borrowed one just like it the previous year in England. "Ohh you must be the couple with the cabin on Lake Rotoiti then" said the seller. The only 2/3 people I know in New Zealand and who live about 70 miles apart managed to meet each other

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