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!

Foreign football match meeting

I went to watch England v Slovakia in Bratislava (popn. 431,000) in October 2002 and bought a ticket on the black market from a tout for the Slovakia end. I walked into the Slovakia end of the stadium (where there were 30,000 fans present) and randomly stood in front of an ENGLISH man who lived and worked in the city. He said he could tell I was English, and we got chatting. It turned out that, like me, he supported AFC Bournemouth, which was where his parents lived. If that wasn't strange enough, he actually used to live in the same area of London as I grew up in and still lived at the time (Palmers Green) - and used to be a local in the pub that was MY local. WEIRD.

Unlikely chain

This is rather long. I am a retired engineer and here is a recount of a coincidence that happened to me. I was working at an engineering factory on the TVTE (Team Valley Trading Estate) at Gateshead in the UK. One Saturday while out shopping I bought an 'Engineers Pocket Book' . This book would come in useful for screwthread sizes which I machined occasionally. The book itself is small, about 4x3x1 inches, small enough to slip out of haversack.  At the time I was courting and used to meet my girlfriend in Newcastle on Saturdays, straight from work. My girlfriend lived about 8 miles north of Newcastle and the TVTE is 2 miles south. I lived in Sunderland which is about 9 miles in the same direction so I didn't find it worthwhile to go home first. Anyway I had the engineers book for about a month, then I lost it. I presumed it must have slipped out of my haversack somewhere between Newcastle and Sunderland. The book hadn't cost much so I didn't worry about it. My girlfriend and I decided to get married. We planned to live in Sunderland for the time being so I decided to get a job nearer home.

Birthday date time coincidence

I was in a long term relationship and met my boyfriend's brother's girlfriend for the first time one Christmas. We got talking and realised that we shared the same birthday. Not only the same date, but the same year and the same birth time 23.45.. Her mum was there and verified the time. We played a few board games that day, and often called out exactly the same answers.. We then discovered that although we met on the Kent coast, we had both been born in London, only a few miles apart. We had both worked in Belgium in our late teens. She had been a nanny / au pair in Belgium for the english man who had taught me english A level in evening classes in the UK. I meet a lot of people with the same birthday as me.

Cathedral Surprise

My name is Mark Rxx and back in the late 1990's and early 2000's my wife and I used to go away for a weekend break every September. In 2001 we decided to visit her sister and husband who then lived just outside of Norwich and so on Friday 14th September, set off on the lengthy journey from our home in Devon. This was my first visit to East Anglia and I knew of no other members from my side of the family living any further eastwards than Berkshire. Rxx is a fairly uncommon name anyway, there are not that many of us about. We had intended to go in to the city for some sight-seeing on the Sunday, thinking it would be not so busy then, but on the Saturday morning changed our minds and went in then instead. We hadn't especially planned on visiting the Cathedral but on seeing the directional signs in the city centre, thought yes - better take a look whilst we're here. Norwich Cathedral is a very beautiful and very big building, both outside and in and we ambled around inside for quite a while, my wife going off in one direction and me in another. To this day I wonder just why I chose to wander in to a small chapel, tucked away at the rear of the Cathedral.

birthdays, meetings

My mother's son, son-in-law and godson all had the same birthday--Feb. 14th I walked down the Ulica Placa in Dubrovnik and met the sister of a friend at school (in UK). On a small boat touring Windermere with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, we met a couple on the boat with us who came from their small town in California. I was entering the local post office when two women unknown to each other came out. Both recognized me from a picture in the local paper, and approached me to say they enjoyed my books. This in a city of 150,00+.

Chance lift

I was posted to RAF Leconfield in 1971, and was allocated a quarter at RAF Driffield. The Driffield quarters were awful, which prompted us to buy a house on the outskirts of Driffield (knowing that I would be at Leconfield for a few years). A few months later, I was posted to Akrotiri. In 1973, I was on my way home from work one day, when 2 men were thumbing a lift just outside the camp gates. I stopped, and offered them a lift to Limassol. They were pleased to get a lift to the west outskirts on the by-pass, as one of them had served in the RAF at Akrotiri over 10 years earlier and had lived somewhere in that area. It transpired they were MOD employees (with some specialist experience) and were in Cyprus for about 10 days, and this could be their only chance to get to Limassol. As I neared Limassol, I said "Just tell me when you want me to stop". On the by-pass, I said "this is where I turn off". The ex-RAF chap said " just drop us off round the corner. This area looks familiar". I said "I'm turning right at the end of this road". He said " Drop us off there, then". I turned right, and he said "I know this street.

PIN code

A few years ago, I received a new credit card with the accompanying letter containing the concealed temporary PIN code. I went to the ATM with the intention of changing this to a memorable number but on revealing the code in the letter, I discovered that the not only were the four numbers the same as my intended change but they were in exactly same sequence, so I had nothing to alter! A remarkable coincidence I imagine. If only it had been the lottery!

A Long Train Journey

It was 1996 and Matthew, aged 21, was making the long 3 day train journey from Perth, in Western Australia to Sydney. He intended spending some time in Sydney before continuing on his travels to Thailand. After two nights spent in the pretty uncomfortable sleeper seat, the train stopped at a small inland country town, Young, in New South Wales. The seat next to him was taken by Martin, aged 20. Martin is my husband's nephew and, at this time, we hadn't met him, only having seen the occasional photograph. Martin started up a conversation with Matthew, as they were going to be travelling companions for a few more hours. Martin, noting Matthew's haversack, asked if he was travelling and enquired about his plans. He then asked Matthew if he had ever been to England and said he hoped one day to visit the UK himself. Matthew replied that he was actually born in the UK but his family emigrated when he was a toddler so didn't really remember much. Martin then mentioned the only place he really knew of in the UK, "Portishead" which was where my husband and I once lived and where his grandparents still lived.

Pictures at an exhibition

In the mid-nineties I went to University in Yorkshire and would get the coach home to Wales which would always involve a change at Birmingham. On one occasion we nearly missed the change, so with only a few seats remaining on the departing coach I sat down next to an elderly woman for the onwards journey. We got chatting and it turned out that not only had she been evacuated to my town in west Wales during WW2 but she’d actually lived in a house which (though it’s since been rebuit on the same site) was then surrounded by fields and is now in the street I grew up in. My oldest friend’s grandparents live there and have done my entire life.

sequential license plate numbers

Once about 25 or 30 years ago my license plate on my truck was 371719. One day I was driving up a hill and noticed the car in front of me had the plate 371718. Just as I was thinking how weird that was, the car in front of that one turned off and I could see that its plate was 371717. So there were three cars in a row with plates 371717, 371718 and 371719. They were all New Hampshire plates. This means the cars were all registered at the same window at the motor vehicles dept. in sequential order.

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