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!

Chance meeting

In 1998 I had a loft conversion done on my house in Cambridge. I employed a friendly local builder and his carpenter, also a local boy was called Geoff. In 1999 I heard that Geoff had taken a year off to go travelling around the world with his girlfriend. In 2000 I took my children on a trip of a lifetime to visit friends in Queensland Australia. Whilst staying with them we took a day trip out to Great Keppel Island, a tiny tropical island off the Queensland coast. We were utterly amazed to bump in to Geoff there and spent a happy half hour hearing about his travels. Since that chance meeting he has returned to Cambridge and I bump in to him from time to time on home territory!

On a flight

Many years ago I was on leave from working in Papua New Guinea to my then home in Northern Ireland. The night before I was due to return my wife enquired about a person who I had previously worked with in Scotland. Next morning I flew from Belfast to Heathrow and checked in for my onward flight to Hong Kong and then went to sit in the departure lounge. A few minutes later the person we had discussed also came into the lounge. We then talked about another mutual aquaintance and on being called to board bumped into him at the other end of the lounge. I was returning to PNG, the next person was starting work in Hong Kong and the third was going on holiday. None of us was aware that the others would be on the same flight.

Fiddler friend

Last autumn I heard by chance on Radio 4 a programme about a fok instrument, a Hardanger fiddle. I had never heard of it before. I liked the sound, and wanted to know more, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. There it told me that this type of fiddle was sometimes used in popular musci, notably in the film score to Lord of the Rings. I should say I am not a musician, but the very next day I met an old friend who is a professional fiddler. I probably see him about once a year. I asked if he had heard of this instrument. He said he had not only heard of it, but owned one, and showed it to me. He asked if I had seen Lord of the Rings, saying that if so, I would have heard him playing it, as he was the fiddler on the sound track - he proceeded to paly it for me.

Same house

Last year for her 84th birthday my sister and I decided to take my mother back to her place of birth, Romsey in Hampshire, where she had spent many happy years as a child. She wanted to revisit the house where she had lived and other favourite old haunts. We arrived in Romsey at lunch time and went for some lunch in a pretty place near the car park. Next to the cafe was a very small museum of local history which we thought Mum would find interesting so we popped in there after lunch. On our way out we spoke to the attendant and explained to her the purpose of our visit and that we were about to go and try to locate her old house. The attendant seemed interested and asked Mum where she had lived. To our amazement we discovered that the attendant lived in the very same house, Norfolk House, that my mother had lived in 65years previously.

needle in a haystack

I was 60 years old in 2001 and was working overseas I often went in to work but had little to do I went on to the internet and looked up my old school in the UK. I left my email address so that any old boy could contact me. Not long after I was contacted by an old colleague working and living in Canada. We exchanged a couple of emails getting up to date with people and things 45 years ago. I soon ran out of things to write as we had little in common I was running out of things to say, so I went on to Google and made a search of my home town in 1957and 1958, hoping that I could get some inspiration for material for my ext email. There I found very little to write about, but I did look into one of the sites “Missing You” I looked at the section on the South East UK. It was full of sad searches people looking for missing brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers It wasn't pleasurable to read. I nearly quit I felt I was invading people's private agonies But before I quit I refined the search, and focussed on my home town. To my surprise I found a message from an old German girlfriend circa 1968 trying to contact me. I was in a state of shock.

A clumsy owl

Many years ago I lived in Haslemere in Surrey, and each evening, for 20 years, I had the pleasure of driving the 15 miles home from Guildford where I worked. To avoid the almost constant traffic queues on the A3 at the Hindhead traffic lights, I invariably took an alternative route through the surrounding country lanes. There were several routes to choose from and each day I would pick one at random. This one time, it was just after 7 in the evening and quite dark, I was driving home through Elstead, and had just joined the Tilford road towards Haslemere. I was listening to the Archers on the radio. George Barford was passing on some words of wisdom to a young William Grundy about owls. He explained that some owls can be pretty stupid animals and it would not be uncommon to see one fly into a tree or the side of a barn. As I listened I passed the “Pride of the Valley” pub (I did not call in!!) and made my way up the hill on the narrow winding road towards Hindhead. All of a sudden, in the darkness ahead, I could see a large owl flying towards me. It was only a metre or so above the road and it seemed to be gliding, with its wings outstretched and motionless.

generations

My daughter lives in an isolated rural area near Toulouse in France. Before they found this house they lived in a gite in an equally remote area between Toulouse an Carcasonne. My small grandson Luke made friends in a very small village school. When my daughter met his mother they realised that they were on year apart at their school in Berkshire. After some discussion they also realised that I was one year behind Gaby's grandmother at the same school

away from home

A few years ago my husband and a friend had a small consultancy with a company near my sister in Lancashire ( we live in Berkshire). Then this company was bought up by a bigger company in Macclesfield. I accompanied my husband on this one last trip to finalise the research. The weather was bad so I decided to go to Cheshire Oaks - a large shopping village near Chester. I phoned my sister to see if she could meet me but her husband said she was visiting a friend in France. I decide to go anyway. Halfway round I bumped into my sister. She and her friend had come back early and gone on their way from the airport. She hadn't spoken to her husband and had no idea I was even in Cheshire. This shopping village is about 50 miles from her home and quite a distance from where I was staying . Also it is very large so if I'd gone a bit later or in a different direction we'd have missed each other

Sons' birth time

Both my sons were born at 8.57 am; they're not twins one being born April 30 1982 and the other February 6 1984. Jill

linking people

I was living near Dundee, Scotland with my husband. We had a phone call from Tim, who'd been our best man some ten years earlier. We'd all met at university in Dundee. He did not get in touch often, but was calling from his Nottingham home to tell us he was shortly due to go to Australia for a year, swopping jobs and homes with a fellow geologist there whom he'd not met, and would never meet due to the travel arrangements. I worked in Dundee public library's local history department. A few days after this call from Tim I was asked to work on a Wednesday morning to show round a group of 30 genealogists who were coming. I always worked from 1pm-9pm on a Wednesday, and in 8 years in the job this was the only time I was asked to swop hours. I duly showed the 30 genealogists, from Australia, the treasures of the local history department. Afterwards, and again, this was the only time this ever happened, they were shown into a separate room and given tea and refreshments. To be sociable I mingled with them a while, but only spoke to one person, completely at random.

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