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!

Meeting old friend

I seem to keep meeting old friends and friends of family, originally from Galashiels in Scotland (pop of 15000), father played football and cricket and was relatively well known, he kept meeting people in various places around the world. I was in vegas, on strip having left dennys and walked right into my fathers best mans daughter, old friend, we both said hi as if it was normal to meet on a crowded vegas street, in some way due to us both knowing my father constantly met people. Both obviously surprised, they were leaving later that day. Same thing happened to my dad numerous times, leaving a lift in spain early eighties met another friend from Galashiels he hadnt seen in years. Used to be a standing joke if he came out onto the balcony with the pope in St Marks sq. someone would say "whos that up there with Johnny?" These coincidences on their own not that unusual and probably explained by a relatively small town and its population going abroad etc, but happened with alarming regularity. Thanks

fomalhaut b planet

Watching 'Stargazing Live' on iplayer just now, I was being told of a distant star called Fomalhaut. Interested to see if I could find it on my phone's Google SkyMap I sat watching the program while the app loaded up. I was trying to remember the spelling of the star so I could type it into my search function, but as I looked back at my phone I was amazed to find that in the centre of my screen was Fomalhaut, meaning that my phone was 'pointed' at the star by pure chance. I wonder if the odds of this are calculable?

Birthday coincidence

In the late 1950's,my sister and I both had boyfriends. Talking together later we discovered that both lads had the same birth date July 18th and even greater coincidence that they were born the same year 1936. these lads had never met and originated from different parts of the country so had no connection whatsoever. We both later married them and stuck together for over 50 years.

car registrations; 3 stories

I've always been a car enthusiast, and now, later on in life, a classic car enthusiast. Here are three stories. 1. Last week my wife part exchanged her 3 year old Focus, reg HG58 NKX, for a new one, by coincidence the reg of the new one is HG61 NKX. The dealer insisted the number was not reserved for her. 2. In 1967 my father bought a 1964 Morris 1100 for me (in Middlesex where I lived), and I loved that car! The registration was JMP 318B. Two years ago I went to my step son's wedding in the wilds of Lancashire, and the chef of the hotel where the reception was held had there a Morris 1000 Traveller registration no JMP 319B. I was gobsmacked! The car was next out of the showroom to mine in 1964, had been transported about 250 miles to the middle of nowhere, with most of the other cars of that date now scrapped, and me, an old enthusiast, stumbled upon it. Surely, that is lottery numbers. I have photos of both as evidence. Can you work out odds on that? 3. In my last job I had a new Mondeo, reg SB 55 KAJ. This is about ex wives of mine. One was Shiela Brown, born in 54, another was Karen Jane, born in 56. The average year therfore was 55!

work encounter

In the early 1980s my husband was working in Cockermouth, Cumbria, he had to visit an address to discuss a job that needed doing. He couldn't contact the householder by phone as he didn't have the number nor did he know where the house was although he did have the address. He therefore went into the first shop he saw, a bookshop and asked the first person he saw working there did she know where this address was, lo and behold the person he asked was the same householder he was trying to get in touch with.

family member meeting

I had moved to London in 1989, from my hometown of Rochdale, North West England. I had been on a course somewhere and was thus at a tube station I did not normally go to. I stood on the platform waiting for the train, when it arrived a door stopped exactly in front of me, as the door opened I saw my cousin Lisa, who had unbeknown to me moved to the South of England from Dublin, and was working in London. I hadn't seen her for probably more than 15 yrs! I stayed talking with her and let the train go and we stayed in touch and met up while we were both in London.

Gay Birthdays

About 12 years ago I got together with my partner Christina, whose birthday is 6 March, and introduced her to my two best gay friends in Winchester. Turned out one of them had the same March birthday as Christina, whilst it turned out her partner shared my birth date of 27 May. We're all born several years apart but it still seems an odd coincidence and means we can never forget one another's birthdays.

Former schoolfriend's house

A few months ago I stayed with an old school friend overnight after the reunion we had organised to celebrate the school's 50 years. We were the top year when it opened, but I had not seen her for nearly 48 years. I moved away from the area and now live about 50 miles away. When I entered her house I noticed that her hall rug was the same as our hall rug. When I sat in their living room I noticed that they have the same two two seater settees with an additional storage box seat. It felt really odd when I noticed that we have the same wallpaper in our living room that we decorated a year ago. Her dining room furniture is the same type of wood as ours. Barbara

Beyond synchronicity into weirdness.

I had a long and passionately-intense relationship with a woman which lated several years, on and off, until it finally ended when she moved away. One of the things which later became an icon was the music she always played after we'd made love as we were snuggled together before dropping off to sleep; Sade's "Lovers Rock". For months, every time I went around the markets and the stalls, I'd stop to browse through to find it.(Nowadays I'd just download it off the internet but this was 15 years back.) In the end I just gave up and one day, on impulse, bought a different Sade album, "Stronger than Pride", which I remembered fondly from years before. When I got back home and played it later I sat frozen for ages in disbelief. The CD sleeve was "Stronger than Pride"", the printing on the CD itself listed the tracks from "Stronger than Pride" - but the actual recording on the CD was "Lovers Rock".

birthday coincidence

both my sister and I had Mothers-in-law who were born on Leap Years Day, one in 1896 in Cheshire and the other in 1900 in Cornwall.

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