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!

Children's Birthdates

Three of my children were born on dates that are palendromic (if you don't include the 19) the first was born on 17/1/71; the second on 27/11/72 and the third on 8/7/78. Not true palendromes I know but good enough for me. My fourth child does not have a palendromic birthdate but is called Hannah so her name is a palendrome. Her birthdate is 10/9/87.

Passports and Weddings

The day after our wedding we went to Gatwick to fly to Venice for our honeymoon. We were at the front of the queue to board the plane and there were two desks open to check passports. As my wife showed her passport, the receptionist asked "Do you have an extension on your passport?" Simultaneously I heard the receptionist at the other desk ask the same question to the lady of the next couple in the queue. My wife's passport had expired and the other lady's passport had also expired. In the event, after phoning ahead to Venice, both were allowed to travel. Inevitably we all began talking and it transpired that while we were going to Venice for our honeymoon, they were going for their wedding anniversary. One evening during our stay, we bumped into the same couple in a very busy St Mark's Square.

john b

When about six years old during the mid 1940s I recall meeting two Land Girls in a barn on a farm near my home village in South Leicestershire; nothing memorable occurred and the incident remained forgotten for many years. Later, during the late 1970s or 1980s I was queuing at a local Post Office in Northampton when I was approached by a lady who knew my name and recalled the incident, saying that she was one of the Land Girls concerned and was now living in the town, I do not recall any mention of the other girl. We had a pleasant conversation and then both went about our business. Unfortunately I did not take any details and have not meet or heard either lady since that time. Time between the two incidents was about 35 years.

Lightning strikes twice

Seven years ago my daughter was diagnosed with MS. She had a very severe episode that left her pretty much bedridden for four months, but happily recovered enough to take up her normal life. During this time, her partner was incredibly supportive. A couple of years later, after a series of baffling minor illnesses and mobility problems, he too was diagnosed with MS, something which even their doctors agree is both unusual and very bad luck.

Neighbours reunited

Several years ago, when I was in my late 40s, I was talking with an Australian business contact on the phone, when he confided that he was selling his business and that he was meeting with a representative of the company that was buying him out that day. He knew very little about this man, except that he came from my own hometown in the UK. Laughingly, I said "Well naturally, I'm bound to know him!". To my surprise my contact rang me again the following day and said that he thought I did know his visitor - in fact, it turned out that we had actually grown-up together as he had lived just three doors away from my parents. I had left home when I was l9 and I hadn't seen or heard anything about him or his family for more than 20 years. His company completed the takeover of my contact's business and we met up at a trade show in Paris a few months later to swap stories from our share childhood, something that would never have happened in any other circumstances.

Three coincidental numbers

When I married, the date was October 29. The house we moved into after was number 29. Six years later our baby girl was born on October 29! Sadly a few years later our marriage went badly wrong and we went separate ways. I took an apartment in Norwich, number 8. A year later I moved to Cambridge and took a bedsit, it happened to be number 8, not by choice. Another year later I was allocated a brand new apartment in Cambridge, also number 8!

Meeting in Venice

A couple of years ago, I visited Venice with my husband. We spent a pleasant day discovering the unknown Venice, wandering around all of the little unmarked alleyways and piazzas, stopping for refreshments whenever the mood took us. During one such pitstop, I sat down at an outdoor table whilst my husband went into the cafe to order tea. Idly scanning the group at the next table, I observed that the woman looked strangely familiar. A closer glance revealed that it was, in fact, my husband's brother and sister-in-law and their teenage daughter! My husband and his brother are friendly, but re not in regular contact and none of us had any idea that the others were in Venice. Indeed their visit was a last minute booking, based on flight and hotel availability when they decided to take an impromptu half term break. We were all equally amazed, especially since had we tried to arrange a meeting, it would have been very unlikely that any of us would have been able to find that particularly cafe in that particular square!

Know 50, know the world

At a dinner in France where I knew only the convening couple and my husband, there was much argument about the idea that, if you know 50 people, you have contact with the world. I leant across the table to the man opposite (British) who I had met for the first time that evening and I asked where he was born. "Oh you won't know the place. A small town in England". "Try me". "Westcliff-on-Sea" "Oh yes, I know the place. What's the date of your birth?" Date given. "And where in Westcliff were you born?" "A small nursing home" "Name?" I was born on the same day in the same place, in the same nursing home.

New Friend

My second favourite coincidence story. I bought a chick-lit novel by an established writer partly, I admit, because it had an RAF background and my childhood was also spent on RAF stations. I soon realised that I recognised the places in the book but when I came to reading about seeing a certain film in a certain cinema I was amazed, as I had seen the same film at the same time in the same cinema. I was moved to contact the author and it emerged that our fathers had indeed been stationed at the same place at the same time but Julie was younger than me. She was delighted that I'd got in touch, however, as she'd had a massive crush on my younger brother and always wondered what had happened to him. Sadly, he was terminally ill at the time, otherwise I'd have been tempted to try a bit of matchmaking. Paul has since died but Julie and I have become firm friends, and although she lives in Oxfordshire and I live in the Midlands we meet up often as she frequently visits her parents who, it turned out (a further coincidence), live just a few miles from me.

Apple cake

When I was pregnant with my second child in 1983 I had a craving to eat apple cake. I had never eaten apple cake before but my imagination informed me of it's texture, taste etc. After 3 or 4 days of these cravings I happened to call on my mother (with whom I had had no contact for at least a week). I was greeted with 'I'm glad you came, I've made you a cake, it's an apple cake, I've never made one before' !

Pages