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!

Unlikely Meeting

40 years ago I was a young electronics design engineer working at H W Sullivan in Murray Road, Orpington, Kent. I was working on a project for the Post Office (now British Telecom) and was sent to the London Patent Office to check that the design did not infringe an existing patent. To my astonishment, at the Office I met someone with whom I had been at school four years earlier. I do not recall his name. We had not been close friends and had not kept in touch. This in itself seemed an unlikely coincidence, but I was even more surprised to find that he was working for a division of Vickers Engineering, in offices also in Murray Road, just across the road from H W Sullivan. I have not seen him since. Paul Allen

OId friends

2 coincidences here, both sparked from my move to China. First is that a friend of my flatmate (the flat I'd just left) arrived in China at the same time as me, to do the same job, in a city about an hour away from mine. The second, and I think more weird, is that an old friend of mine moved to Italy at the same time as I moved to China. I made some friends in China who mentioned that they knew someone in Italy too, it turns out that their friend shares a flat with my friend. They're both called James, both from England and are both writers.

Three stories

Two American colleagues from New York visited me in London and I decided to take them to see some musician friends of mine who were giving a concert at a small venue in a part of southeast London that I had never been to before. We were all very surprised when we ran into another former colleague from New York at the concert. Walking home from my office in Manhattan on a Friday afternoon in the summer of 1988, I noticed a window display for a brand of perfume that reminded me of an American exchange student who had been a member of my seminar group and who had once told us that this type of fragrance was her favorite. I turned the corner and saw the woman whom I had just been thinking of and hadn't had any contact with since my university days. During a visit to the UK, I went to a library to do some research on the career of my godmother, who was a teacher and had died a couple of years earlier. The date was Thursday, June 6th. I later discovered that my godmother had been born on Thursday, June 6th. The late Brian Inglis wrote an interesting book on this subject - it was published by Hutchinson in 1990.

Double Numbers

I have a digital clock on my sound system, virtually everytime I look at it, the numbers are the same ie; 19:19, 17:17, 14:14 and so on. It seems to much of a coincedence for it to happen the amount of times it does. Maybe I have my own inbuilt clock and am doing this subconciously. I dont know.

Surprise Visit!!

My classmate was employed in Mysore while i was employed in Visakhapatnam (both places are in India) separated by a distance of approximately 1150 kms. After not seeing each other for nearly 7 years, i decided to visit Mysore without intimating him and surprise him. I landed in Mysore and called up his residence to trace out his exact address. His wife answered the phone and told me that he decided to surprise me and left for Visakhapatnam. On the same day when i was calling his residence from his city (Mysore) he was in my residence to surprise me. Coincidence?? You can decide. Classmate is Mr Radhakrishnan, presently Assistant Research Professor Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering Mississippi State University 130 Creelman St, Box 9632 MS State, MS 39762, USA email: rs634@msstate.edu / radha235@gmail.com Regards D Krishna Kumar, Assistant Engineer (Electrical), Central Public Works Department, Flat 282, Block 12, Sector 7, C G S Housing, Antop Hill, Mumbai 400 037, India

Old School Acquaintances

Whilst serving in the RAF in 1975, I was a security guard on a VIP Comet a/c travelling round the Middle and Far East, Australia and New Zealand. On one leg of the trip we landed at Alice Springs for a 2 hour refueling stop. I drew the short straw and had to guard the a/c. After thing had quietened down an Australian customs officer walked over to the aircraft and greeted me in a broad Scots accent. Being a fellow Scotsman , I asked him where he was from, to which he replied "Near Edinburgh". This was the same sort of response I usually gave as most people had never heard of my home town or were unsure where it was. He replied Linlithgow. My response was that's where I'm from and asked his name. As soon as he told me his name I new who he was as we had both attended Linlithgow Academy and I had been very good friends with his younger brother. I had not recognised him due to the passage of years and the thick bushy beard he sported. On the same trip we had a 6 day stop over in Delhi and were royal looked after by the High Commission staff. On my second night there a member of staff walked in and on seeing each other stood there with mouths agape.

chance meeting far from home

When working in London I had a colleague who joined our team as a volunteer. We lost touch. Several years later I had a day off from working in the Dominican Republic, and went on a day trip to an island. The coach stopped for a loo break at the motorway service station. In the ladies, I met my ex-colleague, now working in the DR, also on a day off.......lo

Clever shirt

Some years ago whilst hanging out the laundry fresh from the washing machine, I found that one of the buttons of one shirt was fastened. 'So you forget to undo the button when you took the shirt off' I hear you cry. Not so, because the button was fastened into the WRONG button hole (and in any case I'm a bit obsessive about always undoing all buttons whenever I take off any clothing). So the button must have become fastened as a result of the random movements created by the action of the washing machine.

Birthday Coincidence

My brother was born on April 16th 1976 Good Friday. I was born April 16th 1979 Easter Sunday and my cousin (my mothers younger brothers eldest son) was born April 16th 1995 Easter Sunday.

Louise Grainger

Birthday Coincidence My brother was born on April 16th 1976 Good Friday. I was born April 16th 1979 Easter Sunday and my cousin (my mothers younger brothers eldest son) was born April 16th 1995 Easter Sunday.

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