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.

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Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Who needs a tv guide

When I was on maternity leave with my first child, about 13 years ago, we never bought the local newspaper or the tv guide, I just took for granted what was on when and knew my favourite regular shows. In our area, this was also before digitial television, so there were only four channels, and no on-tv screen guides. It started out that being home with not much to do and I was bored with the midday movie and thought of a particular movie that I had not seen for many years and was a good one. A week later it was on the midday movie. This starting happening again and again, totally obscure movies that I had already seen or knew about and had wanted to see. Most times it was not that I would sit there and wish to see it, more like something triggered the thought. Like walking past a haridresser named "Bogarts" and thinking of the movie Casablanca, or something that was happening in "Logan" and thinking of the movie Logan's Run... It was probably about the third time before I realised this was such a funny coincidence but it continued every week or fortnight for about four months until I went back to work.

Parallel Thoughts

Within a couple of months of when my husband and I first started seeing each other (and really knew very little about each other), I would think of something that I needed to talk to him about and would ring him at work at various times of the day, only to have him beat me to the punch and ring me just as I was about to call him with the exact same thought on his mind. It was never about anything that we had discussed earlier and it would always be very specific in detail along the same thought. This happened almost every day for several years. Now after 20 years together it is easy to say that we have gotten to know each other, but back then to have only known each for a few weeks when this first started happening and to know when to call at that precise moment about the exact same thing every day for years was something extraordinary. Our friends all said that we were obviously soul mates. I think of it as parallel lives also.

Beyond Chance

This is a coincidence that I saw reported on our local TV news and also the local newspaper. It has since been reported on a BBC national programme ‘ Strange Days’. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/review--weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-1388058.html The coincidence is so extraordinary that you may wish to research it. This may not be too difficult since names, places and other details of the event are recorded on the internet. Essentially, the coincidence is this. In 1992 Jason Pegler, was walking home from work in Dover when he heard a public phone ringing. He picked it up and was startled to hear the voice of a colleague, Sue Hamilton, apologising for disturbing him and asking for advice about how to work the office fax machine. He had great difficulty in persuading her of what had happened - until she looked down at her desk and realised that she had dialled his staff number by mistake. It just happened to be the number of the call box he just happened to be walking past.

video haunts

I hired some VHS films and was watching one - it was not that good so I decided to flick through the TV channels instead. I became annoyed because never being good with technology I saw that I had merely paused the film, not cut back to the TV. However, that was not the case - on closer examination I realised that I had hired a film that was also shown on TV the same night and that I had started watching it at exactly the same time as it was being screened. Both the VHS and the programme were no more than 60 seconds apart.

birthday coincidence

1990 two great grandaughters born to Ellen and Robert B's family, the first born the 15th of January Ellens birthday. the second born on the 8th of July on Roberts birthday.what are the chances of that. the first one was my sisters grandaughter. the second was my grandaughter. Barbara H.nee.B

Unexpected meeting

I live in London and visit the National Portrait Gallery about once a year. My cousin lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and has not visited the UK in five years. Returning from a business trip to Moscow with her husband, they stopped over in London for 24 hours. They had not advised any of their UK relatives of their visit and we were totally unaware that they were in the country. I missed a train at London Charing Cross station and decided to spend the 30 minutes till the next one in the National Portrait Gallery. i was leaving the ground floor gallery and turned to see my cousin almost next to me . In the words of Harry Hill "What's the chances of that happening ?"

VaL

In the early 1980s I was living in Manchester. The phone rang early one morning. A voice asked to speak to Shani. I said they must have a wrong number. There was no one with that name here. They asked again for Shani. I told them that there was no Shani living here but that about 7 or more years ago I went to the same youth club as a Shani M who lived in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucesterhire. (I've no idea why I told them that.) The voice on the end of the phone said that was the Shani they wanted to speak to. I asked the caller to give my phone number to Shani if they got hold of her. That same evening I had a phone call from Shani and we met a day or so later. Shani was soon to move to Canada. In fact about 5 years ago I met Shani again at a Youth Club reunion in Bourton-on-the-Water.

Double birthday and births

Hi. My best friend David's girlfriend had their first child on her birthday (22/11/2008). My wife had our first child exactly one month later, also on her birthday (22/12/2008). We find it a little weird.

Road accident

Hot summer afternoon 4 years ago I was making my way to Warrington on business. About three miles from the centre of the town I suddenly got a picture flash in my mind of an accident at Bridge Foot (centre of Warrington) involving a double decker bus and that a stretcher was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Approx 5 minutes later, I reached Bridge Foot, and there in the exact spot I had seen in my vision was an accident involving a bus and a patient was being put into the ambulance. The only difference I remembered from my vision was that the bus was White and the real accident involved a red bus.

Parcel Ted Hughes

Today i was listening to radio 4 as I wrapped two items for a friend's Birthday parcel. The first item was a book by Ted Hughes called "How the Whale Became". The second was a sheet of graphic images of swallows. As I wrote her address on the front of the parcel I became aware that I was listening to Ted Hughes reading part of his poem about Swallows. The item was on the programme 'Questions Questions'.

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