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

My husband works for an electricty company repairing faults and can be despatched to anywhere over 3 counties. The other morning he attended a call-out and noticed the girl at the particular house he was visiting wore the same school uniform as our son. (It is a large town with at least 8 Secondary schools.) He joked that she might know our son. Bearing in mind there are 1100 pupils at the school, the girl laughed and confirmed that she sits next to our son in their Maths class!

Work Coincidence

Where I worked when I first came to London, I had a colleague whose family name was Mellish. Later in life I became a Governor of a NHS Trust, the chairman of which was my work mates cousin, (also a Mellish). I then volunteered as a guide at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to find one of my fellow guides was my work mates sister (also a Mellish). I know they are a South East London family but the probabilities of such events twice over seem quite high.

Two coincidences

On the night that the Princess of Wales was killed in Paris I was watching the TV and reading and at about 1130pm ( 12 30 am in Paris and about the time of the accident ] I suddenly thought if someone in the Royal Family dies all the TV programmes will be cancelled. I then went back to my book and never gave it another thought until I heard the news the next morning. In the 1980s my husband was in charge of an audio - visual department at a Buckinghamshire Grammar school. I worked in a school in another part of the county and would sometimes borrow videos from my husband for the English Department in my school. One day a member of the English Dept in my school asked if my husband had a copy of Our Day Out which he could lend to my school. I was almost certain that he didn't have a copy but phoned him and left a message. He told me that as he received the message a member of staff from his school had walked through the door with a copy of Our Day Out asking if it could be copied.

Recording donations

In 2004 the Cambrian ARchaeological Association was visiting the Welsh Fusiliers Museum in Caernarfon Castle. My husband, Peter Llewellyn, and I were leaving through the shop in company with Sir Richard Hanbury Tennison. There was a donation box at the exit with a computer screeen just above it running a sequence of names. As we were leaving we were preparing to drop a coin or two into the box. Sir Richard dropped a coin in and immediately his name appeared on the screen above. We feared extraordinary surveillance! We discovered later that the names were those of people who had given exhibits to the museum, which Sir Richard had done some years previously. Our names, needless to say, did not appear when we dropped coins in!

Meeting on a train

It was November 1962 and I was an officer in the Merchant Navy. When my ship had been unloading in Montreal, Canada, I met a Canadian person in a bar and made a friend during the few days we were there. Back in England I had a girlfriend who lived in London and would visit her at her flat and then leave using a taxi, with just enough time to catch the last train from Victoria to Brighton. The train invariably left from platform 15 which allowed me to get the taxi to use the side entrance to the station where I could leap out of the taxi and go straight across the platform and onto the train usually with a couple of minutes to spare. The train split at Haywards Heath station, the front half carrying on to Brighton while the rear section went to Lewis and Eastbourne. On this particular night I leaped out of the taxi and found that the train was on platform 14 with a set aof tracks between me and the train. I had to run down platform 15 for half the length of the train, around to the barrier on platform 14. As I raced for the train the guard was blowing his wistle and he pulled me into the rear of the end carriage.

Personalised Number Plate

My surname is Frost and therefore in the 1970's the appropriate personalised car number plate would be FRO5T. My job then involved travelling overseas. One Sunday morning I was boarding for a long haul flight to Pakistan. At the entrance was a stand with newspapers from which I took the Times bunch. I must add that this is the only time I have taken the Times as my usual read is tabloids. Sunday editions with magazines are considerably extensive. I took my seat (in Business Class) and opened the paper at random. The page was full of number plate details but my eyes were drawn to FRO5T at £9000. This was too high a price for me then but only if...? I did cut out the section from the paper and still have this as evidence.

Fellow F

Being interested in researching the history of the F family, I came across another F by coincidence. I was on a package holiday to Turkey, and while changinging planes at Istanbul Airport Transit Lounge, a guy in the crowd noticed the surname on my tour badge. He was also a F. We exchanged contact details, and I learned that he had traced the F family tree back to the 12th century. Later he sent me the results of his researth, and on comparing this with my own exisitng family tree, concluded that there is a 50-year gap in the 1600s between the end of his and start of mine! Roger F

Birthday Coincidence

My two children were both born on 25 November (1997 & 1999) - how common an occurrence is that?

Neighbours in America

I live in England. One year me and my dad went to Florida on holiday. One day we decided to go the Virgin Megastores there, and while we were on the top floor... we ran into our neighbour from back in England!

phone top up

when i had a vodaphone pay as you go phone, i accidently bought a £10 orange top up. i didnt realise this until later on in the day, so was a bit miffed that i had to venture back into town to exchange it. on my way out, with a friend he bumped into a man he knew, they spoke briefly and this man spoke of his annoyance of having to go back to the shop he bought his phone top up from-because he had bought a vodaphone instead of an orange one. it was the same amount, so we just did a straight swap! now that was strange! we decided that our coincidence could of been fate, so we began a breif relationship-needless to say that it was not fate, and we soon ended it!

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