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!

Disney, Orlando

One more coincidence. I was on a trip to Disneyland in Orlando with my husband and grandson. I was standing waiting for my grandson and a few yards away I saw who I thought was a women that works in the restaurant where I work. I stood looking for a while until I plucked up the courage to talk to her, as I just couldn't believe that it could be her and it was.

I've heard of mistaken identity but this is ridiculous!

A young surf board maker from New Zealand was told to give me a lift to work in his combi van, I worked in the surf shop below the flat he was staying in. I was a bit disconcerted by the way he kept staring at me and later, when I was in the communal kitchen making tea, he put his head round the door and said he had something to show me! He was holding a photograph album and as I opened it (rather nervously) I was shocked to find photographs of me! I asked indignantly where he got them from.....though, as I looked at them, I did not recognise where they had been taken. He laughed and apologised and then said 'That's not you.....those are pictures of my ex-wife'. I was stunned - I have mistaken people for someone else and even been mistaken for someone else but I had actually mistaken someone else for myself. I guess this is really his coincidence, not mine. He had travelled all the way to the UK to get over his divorce and his first job was to pick up someone who turned out to be his wife's double. Poor guy.

Mystery Girlfriend

In the 1960s a friend of a friend, who lived in London and wanted to move to Cornwall, came to stay with us, when we lived there, for the occasional weekend. He spoke of his ‘gorgeous’ girlfriend but never brought her along, though he always said he would. We were visiting family in Berkshire when we decided to go into London, to see if any job opportunities were available. We went into a recruitment agency and were interviewed by a very nice young woman with whom we got on really well. She sent us for an interview and we were offered a super job, but we decided not to take it and returned home to Cornwall. A couple of weeks later the friend from London came to stay again and announced that this time he had brought with him the ‘gorgeous’ girlfriend (whose existence we had begun to doubt!). We went out to the van to meet her and…….out stepped the nice young woman from the recruitment agency! In advance of our trip to London we knew very little about the chap who stayed with us and nothing about the mystery girlfriend, except that her first name was Jackie - but as it was a not uncommon name, we made no connection with the Jackie we met at the recruitment agency.

An epiphanic experience

I was reading a Robert Graves novel - it nay have been 'King Jesus' - and was listening to Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides Overture' (otherwise known as Fingal's Cave) through earphones. Robert graves is a magnificent author and just reading the book alone is enought to transport you into another world. I was at he part where Jesus is in the cave approaching the Witch of Endor, a spooky episode already, and the music reached a climactic and dramatic crescendo at exactly the same moment. I nearly fell off my chair I was so excited!

road traffic

I was driving along a main road a few years ago with a colleague and was moaning (as one does) about the traffic, and in particular the sort of thing that would be better off going by train and thereby freeing up some space on the road. I remarked that this would especially include brand-new railway carriages. I didn't have time to say anything more before we turned a corner and in a layby was a low-loader truck - with a brand-new railway carriage sitting on it. Point made I think!

A golfing coincidence

I don't know a lot about golf, but I do know what a birdie, an eagle and an albatross are. I was in the car listening to the radio one day and was idly wondering how often a player scored an albatross, given than this was a hole scored in three strokes under par, meaning that he would have to achieve a par5 with just two strokes (a hole in one off a par4 might count I suppose). On the next next news bulletin it was announced that an albatross had been scored in a tournament taking place that day.

radio 3

One Sunday morning I was listening to radio 4 and decided that I really didn't want to hear about the Archers for the second, perhaps third time that week. In fact, what I really wanted to listen to at that particular moment was the folk song 'Lord of the Dance'. But I didn't have a recording of it so had to make do with radio 3. Which was just then broadcasting Aaron Copeland's 'Appalachian Spring' - the part that incorporates the melody from 'Lord of the Dance'. My eyes filled with tears. For joy or shock?

radio 3

One Sunday morning I was listening to radio 4 and decided that I really didn't want to hear about the Archers for the second, perhaps third time that week. In fact, what I really wanted to listen to at that particular moment was the folk song 'Lord of the Dance'. But I didn't have a recording of it so had to make do with radio 3. Which was just then broadcasting Aaron Copeland's 'Appalachian Spring' - the part that incorporates the melody from 'Lord of the Dance'. My eyes filled with tears. For joy or shock?

meeting a butterfly

I like to take walks in the country. One summer's day I was out in a little wood near the house and was idly thinking about nature in general and butterflies more particularly. In fact I was wondering whether i would recognise a comma (a species of butterfly quite commonly found in England) when at that very instant one flew onto me and sat on my jumper for quite long enough for me to recognise it - as a comma.

New years eve

I was in a pub in Newlynn, Cornwall with my husband and friends Karen and Dave on New Years eve 2011. We were there because Karen and Dave had invited us to spend New year with them at their holiday cottage in Newlynn. Karen and Dave's cottage had orginally belonged to Karen's uncle and aunt but had been sold many years ago. Karen's mother who was orginally from Cornwall, moved to the US when she married a Texan, Karen's father. Karen was born and lived in Texas until she met Dave, who was there working, from Basingstoke, England. Karen and Dave returned to England to live and eventually bought the cottage in Newlynn. That New Years eve, we found ourselved In one of the three pubs that we had been to that evening. Sitting at the bar was young woman as we were ordering our drinks. The young woman was a local secondary school teacher and as we chatted her boyfriend came to the bar and we we found out that her boyfriend had known one of Karen's relatives when he was a youngster, and that he had gone fishing with her relative.

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