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!

telephone connection

Years ago I worked as a secretary and would have to phone my boss to pass on messages, on this evening I dialed her number but a man answered I apologised and said I had the wrong number, but for some reason he asked who I wanted, again I said (trying not to be rude) I was phoning my boss but again he said whoes yr boss, I was getting impatient and said its Jenny Wrigh t (name changed) he said I know a Jenny Wright I said I dont think its the same one I am trying to contact he said she works at GMB H & S Officer, he said I'm her brother and live in Crystal Palace so I just said that unbelievable trying to get off the phone. I then rang my boss again gave her the messages and said dont think I'm mad, then I told her about the call, she said how could you have spoken to my brother I haven't spoken to him for years and got quite cross. But the next day at work she told me she had contacted him and it was him I had spoken to I just couldn't believe it. By misdialling the first digits thats was happened. must be million to one if not more.

A letter

I lived in Stockholm with my family from 1987 until 1990. While there we made friends with an Australian couple, Gill and Rod, who returned to Sydney just before we returned to the UK. My husband worked for Unilever, and before we left, a colleague who lived in Sydney, called to say that his son had been working in Gotland, an island off the coast of Sweden and was leaving to travel around Europe. He asked if his son, Scott could bring most of his belongings to our house in Stockholm for us to take back to England and store them for him while he travelled.This we did, and over the next year and a half Scott would arrive at our house in Northamptonshire stay for a while and then carry on with his travels. Gill and I stayed in touch and corresponded regularly. She wrote a letter to me one day, and had been invited out for lunch with some friends who had moved to a part of Sydney that she didn't know. By chance, she took the letter with her to post and stopped at a post office somewhere on the way. She handed the letter over the counter to the post mistress who looked at it in amazement and then said, "I know this place". "Northamptonshire?" Gill asked.

Neighbours

When my son was at school he took part in an exchange programme with a French school in Tours. A girl called Natalie came to our house via the school and returned on a second private visit with her brother Laurent. We kept in touch with the family for a while, but hadn't heard from them for a few years. My son went to Southampton University and moved into a student house in the town. Out of the blue we received a letter from Natalie telling us that her brother was living and working in England. When we read his address, we couldn't believe that he was living in a house opposite my son in Southampton.

Growing Up

I recently discovered that a friend I have known for 25+ years (we are both in our 60s) grew up in a village called Moulton in Cheshire while I grew up in Moulton Lincolnshire. She now lives in North Wales and I live on the Isle of Man

First and last days of work

At the end of October '11 after 27 years in the library service, I was working my last day prior to retirement. On that afternoon there was an MP's surgery, something never held before at the branch. There was a lady waiting who introduced herself to me and we realised that we had worked together when we were teenagers. After she had gone, it occurred to me that we had started our first job together on the same day and she had come into the library on what was the final day of my final job. I had seen her once, several years ago, in another branch where I was working at the time, but we had never kept in touch apart from that.

School visit

Some year around 1980 I preparing a school assembly with my tutor group of 13 year olds. This was based around the story of Moses and the the plagues of Egypt. One of the boys in class played Moses and my disembodied voice over the speaker system played God telling Moses what to do to fulfil my commands. We rehersed over a period of about a week. During this time I took a class on a school visit to a village about 15 miles away. Part of this involved a study of the village church. While I was supervising the children in the church I wandered over to the lectern and glanced at the open bible, open at the page in Exodus dealing with Moses and the plagues. If I were religious I'm sure I would have seen it as a sign from God. Incidentally, the assembly was a great success. Richard Mapp

Birthday coincidence

I married Gary, a Royal College of Art Graduate, in 1971; his RCA friend Mike was Best Man. Our first child was born on 8th October 1974, and our second on 6th August 1976. When Mike married later, in the 80s, of course Gary was his Best Man. Mike's first child was born on 8th October 1985, and his second on 6th August 1989. Whatever did Sir Hugh Casson, their RCA tutor in Interior Design, teach them? From Ros Pritchard (sadly, now widowed)

Mr

One night, a few years ago, in a little Welsh country inn, well off the beaten track, I was sitting amongst the locals listening to the chat, when it gradually dawned on me that four of the seven had only one eye. They were all locals, all living within three or four miles or less of the pub. They all frequented the pub, some more frequently than others, but what a coincidence. How many men in The Principality are one-eyed, one wonders? What are the chances of that happening? It won't happen again because two of the four have now gone to join the Great One-Eyed Convention in the sky!

A fishy tale.

We were newly arrived in Melbourne, Victoria having emigrated from Scotland in 1970 and were living in a small complex of flats near the coast. A neighbour had given us some freshly caught fish. While making an absolute hash of gutting and filleting etc, there was a knock on the door. My husband's great-aunt Isabelle, unknown to both of us, was at the door with a younger man!! She was on a world cruise, something she often did, and had tracked us down with information gleaned from other relatives in Scotland. Her habit on these cruises was to befriend a member of the crew, who would then accompany her when on shore. This chap turned out to have been a fishmonger in the past.!! He prepared and cooked the fish beautifully, we all had lunch, they left, and we never saw or heard of them again

Memory of Memories

In my last year at university, sitting in my room revising for finals, with my boyfriend (now my husband), also revising, I was visited by a post-graduate student doing psychology. He asked me if I would like to take part in a memory project he was working on for his PhD, and he even offered to pay me. He explained that he would leave a list of items for me to look at and memorise and he would return after 20 minutes to "test" me on these items. As soon as he left the room, I had the feeling that I had seen him somewhere before, quite a few years earlier, and was racking my brains as to where. So, while I was concentrating on his list, my mind was going into overdrive trying to remember. Eventually it dawned on me. I waited until Jim's return (name of student), we went through the test, he told me I had an excellent memory, and then I asked him what he could remember of a boat trip he had made, from Harwich to Hoek of Holland six years earlier, in order to meet up with his German penpal who was due to meet him off the boat - he looked at me totally blankly I remember, and asked me how I could possibly have known about that trip.

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