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!

Family History

In 1991, my husband and I applied to become Tennents of a pub, the only specification being in east anglia and a rural area. We were allocated a pub in Monks Eleigh in Suffolk., a small village of about 650 people. My mother had always led me to beleive that she had been born in Birmingham and had lived in London and Clacton until she, together with her husband and myself and my sister moved to what was to become a part of Milton Keynes. My mother died shortly before we left Milton Keynes to go into the pub. Some time after we had moved into the pub I found some old papers of my mother's including my great grandfather's birth certificate which showed that he had been born and lived in Monks Eleigh. Further research identified several of our regulars as being related.

Mr Shaun McG

Holiday Coincidence In circa 2003 ish I had regular dealings with a legal firm Hammonds. The Partner was David M. We didnt speak regularly but during one conversation when we hadn't spoken for months we went through the usual pre-business chat (Golf/Holidays etc). The conversation went something like this; Been anywhere nice for the Hols ? (Me) Yes Majorca (Him) Oh thats a coincidence so did we With then proceeded to; Side of Island Place Village (which was near the old town of Pollensa) Road Before establishing that we had both stayed in the same Villa Cala Jaime Romana. He stayed a couple of weeks before me but we had never mentioned it before and it wasnt pre arranged so it was pure coincidence.

A shared photograph

In 1969 I joined a 'band' as the singer - we thought we were the next Incredible String Band - all hippie and flower power. We went on a day out to Alderley Edge, Cheshire where we sat and played guitars and sang by the side of the path. A guy came along and asked if he coud take picture of us - we said yes - he took a couple and then went off. We never thought about it again until 2 years later one of the band members got a job with Zurich Insurance in Manchester and his co-worker - a girl - thought she recognised him. It turned out it was her boyfriend who had taken the photo and she brought a copy to show us.

Meeting strangers

I was travelling to work last week and came across a car, broken down, with two young ladies standing by it. I stopped to ask if they needed help but they were fine - Dad was on the way. This was about 6-8 miles from Bangor, north Wales on a road which could have taken several routes to various locations. Later that day I left work to buy lunch and enroute to one place changed my mind and went instead into Bangor to Morrison's supermarket - I did a bit of shopping and then went to pay - who was standing behind me in the queue but the two girls and they were actaully telling their friend about breaking down that morning! Of all the checkouts in all the stores - we were next to each other!

abbey rendezvous

We had a family day out to Bath about 15 years ago. My son and I had tickets to watch Bath play Saracens and while we were at the game my wife and my daughter toured the Roman baths and then went to look round the abbey. To their surprise they ran into the Frenchman who had been the overseas student recruited to help my year with our conversational French at school 15 years before. My parents and I had visited him at his parents house in Paris and he had become a family friend. He and his wife were by now both teaching English in Paris and were visiting Bath with a school party. He recognised my wife having met her once at my parents but unfortunately his tight schedule meant that he had left Bath before we got back from the Rugby.

Art and Co-incidence

I'm a visual art and I work with co-incidences all the time. </p> <p>Co-incidence is fundamental to art, design and communication. Everyday life has a certain texture of co-incidence - most things are similar in many ways it's only when and unusually high level of patterning or similarity occurs that we think it's usual, composed or designed. </p> <p>Works of art, design and representation have far higher rates of co-incidence than ordinary life. These co-incidences tell us we are experiencing something that needs to be looked at differently. On the one hand co-incidences are information redundancies - repetitions. But at the same time they are improbabilities that stand out. Artists and designers use them to underscore their intentions and to reduce uncertainty and ambiguity in communication. I think the headings you give are all relevant to art. </p> <p>I have also experienced some episodes of mania. During periods of mania it is striking that ordinary/everyday experience becomes more densely patterned by a sense of living among co-incidences.

surprise meeting

Last year my eldest son flew home from Australia on a short visit to attend a friends wedding and then return, on route stopping in Vietnam for a holiday.Whilst in the UK he visited family but because of pressure of work was unable to see his younger brother.On the weekend he flew to Bangkok to catch a connecting flight to Vietnam <he had missed his direct flight>and amazingly bumped into his younger brother who had flown to Thailand for a holiday and missed his internal connection.Neither brother knew the plans of each other and were dumbfounded.

C Goodwin

A policeman called to my house to take my statement after a car accident six years ago. The policeman was unknown to me but as we chatted I discovered that he lived at the top of my street and had worked alongside my father in a former career many years prior. Three years later I was involved in another car accident. My car was hit by joyriders travelling in a stolen car. The stolen car was found abandoned in a local cemetary. The police officers overseeing the case later notified me that the car was abandoned right beside the graveside of the police officer that took my statement three years previously.

Kota Koincidence!

In the early 80s, I was a Deputy Headteacher in Hertfordshire. I was single, ambitious to progress my career and to travel. I saw an advertisement for the Headship of the International School in Kotakinabalu, Malaysia and decided to apply. I received all the information and completed the application forms but needed to send two passport photographs, which I didn't have. I was staying, for the first time, with an old friend near Ashford, in Kent. She suggested that there would be photo machines in Folkestone, as it was a busy ferry port, so we drove there to find one. The first one we found was broken, as was the second. Eventually, we found one on the seafront and I had my photograph taken. While we were waiting for the machine to process the pictures, a young chap came along the promenade and stopped to use the photo booth.

biological daughter

I did not get to know my daughter, her mother married and had 2 more kids 200 miles away. I would see her from time to time when passing. I was a friend of the family from london, she was not told I was her natural father. She secretly guessed when I turned up on honeymoon when she was 19. Nearly 2 decades passed, and I wrote to her on november 11th 2003. November 12th 2003 I get a letter from her. Our first letters crossed in the post after 37 years. We have since enjoyed a wonderful relationship, and with my grandchildren and my son in law. Sarah my daughter, while driving, asked me to look for a message on her mobile phone. I had to ask for her password which was a random number, I said that it was the same as mine,and that I use it for my pin number. So do I she replied....we have the same pin number from before we knew each other. There are many other small coincidences which are likely to be genetic

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