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!

Heard & Read Words

I tend to have the TV or radio on when I'm reading a book, magazine or internet, or when I'm writing a blog for my website. For several years I've noted that just as I read (or write) a word someone will say it on the programme that's on. Context is irrelevant. Say I'm reading a Terry Pratchett novel while "listening" to NPR's "All Things Considered." As my eyes see the word, let's say "coincidence" the reporter on NPR says "coincidence". Neither sentence has anything to do with the other. The matter in the novel and in the report have nothing else in common. It happens all the time! Doesn't matter what I'm reading, doesn't matter what the background programme is, there's just this tiny synchronicity...It happens several times a week. I've often thought of documenting it except that that would seem, I don't know, a bit OCD? But when I came across an article in The Daily Mail Online I thought I'd report it.

Random connection in small Oregon town

Holiday last year. Visiting Portland, Oregon, from Glasgow, Scotland. Hosted by local PR people. One of whom tells me that my accent reminds her of a guy she knows in a small town call Bend. Four days later, I'm in Bend, walking down street with PR girl who spots this other Scottish guy, shouts him over. We get talking. He has lived in Oregon for 20 years. He comes from the small village in Scotland right next tothe small village I grew up in. My mother was his school dinner lady in a school in Scotland of just 200 kids. And my sister was in his class.

Mother-in-law same name

I came to the UK over 13 years ago for work and met my future husband the first week I arrived from USA. On our first date he took me to Stratford upon Avon for a picnic and I had my passport with me. He asked to look at it and that's when we discovered I had his mothers first and middle name Patricia Ann. My maiden name at the time was Wilson and he was shocked that I had his mothers exact name and said his mothers maiden name was Wolsey giving us the exact same initials PAW before marriage. But it doesn't stop their when I moved in with my soon to be husband the parish in our district was the same church his parents were married in. This means that not only were we getting married in the same church as his parents but now I had the exact first, middle and last name as his mother. Well I guess he followed the saying "You marry someone like your mother". We have been married now for 12 years and his mother and I are very close. It can get funny when we go away together for airports, hotels and spas when we both arrive saying we are Patricia Ann Lloyd.

The Wife and 2x Fathers

My wife was born on exactly the same day and same year my parents got married in October 1982. As if this wasn't strange enough, both of our fathers have the first names "Christopher John" and both were born in 1947.

Family Coincidence

About 32 years ago, aged 18, I was working in an advertising agency in Chancery Lane, London EC4 and I was calling a paper in Fleet Street, to place an advert also in the same area. When the phone connected I got a cross line between my father who was working in E1 talking to my mother who was living in Chigwell Essex. I have never forgotten it!!

Coincidence inside a Coincidence

I spent the Christmas holiday (1988) with a friend who lives in Spain. As it was the first Christmas I had spent away from my family I promised my Daughter I would phone her on Christmas morning (she lives in Rushden, Northants). I was staying in the basement flat of my friend's villa, which also served as his 'Radio Shack' as he is a Radio Ham. On Christmas morning as I was dressing, my friend came into the flat to use his radio to wish his friends from all over the world a Merry Christmas. After he had spoken to several people that he knew he then made an 'open call' inviting any one who was 'on the air' for a chat. A guy called Dave from England contacted him and they talked for a few minutes then he mentioned his full name as Dave Southill, I though "I know a guy by that name I used to shoot with" but I had not seen him for more than 10 years. I asked my friend to ask Dave if he knew me. he did, it was my shooting friend from years back. I then spoke to Dave on the Radio and asked him where he was living now...

Real dementia muddles and coincidences

Mum has alzheimer's disease, so it was initially tricky piecing the beginning of this story together. One evening last Summer, a man (Albert) phoned Mum asking for Brian (my Dad). Mum said sorry but he was very unwell and was in hospital (also with alzheimer's disease). Albert was devastated and said he had no idea. Mum asked him how they knew each other and Albert said "through Church". Mum was confused as she would know any church friend too, but she was certain that she did not know Albert. Albert was so distraught at discovering that Dad was in hospital that Mum took his number and called me for help. Something didn't seem right; I called Albert on the number Mum had taken from him and after a very confused phone call we worked out that we did not know him at all and that he was looking for a different Brian. He had had a terrible shock after speaking to Mum and now believed Brian to be ill in hospital with alzheimer's disease. Albert also told me that he was suffering from early alzheimer's disease.

Basil the Rat!

This is true and very funny! About 10 years ago I was watching 'A Life of Grime' presented by John Peel on TV. Mid program I heard my wife and daughter shrieking upstairs. They rushed down into the lounge announcing that they'd been confronted by a rat in one of the bedrooms. You can understand my reaction "Yeh, right, very funny!". They went on and on demanding I did something. In the end, totally unconvinced, I went upstairs to investigate. They told me to look under the bed. I did and could see the outline of something very still under the centre of the bed. I got a torch and a stick. I shone the light under the bed and could see two little eyes looking right back at me. When I prodded with the stick all hell broke loose and the thing went berserk. IT WAS A RAT! A big 'un too! We flung open the front door and up-ended the bed. The rat shot out the room and took off from the landing to hit the deck below and was gone! We couldn't stop laughing at this amazing and hilarious coincidence and christened the rat Basil, after the famous Fawlty Towers episode. Pretty long odds, eh?

random meeting abroad

I would have been 10 or 11 when we were on a week's holiday in Ostend, Belgium. My mother started talking to someone we did not know, and it turned out to be her cousin with whom she had no contact for many years and whose name (Sonny - properly Clarence) we children had never even heard before. This was in the early 1950's when holidays abroad were not commonplace.

neighbour

we live in kent and travelled to cornwall for a family christening in November 2004 we went shopping in plymouth and bumped into our next door neighbours. neither of us had any idea of the other's travel plans.

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