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!

Coincidence of dates

My father was born on Friday the 13th. He died on 02 02 02 at 02 02 and was buried in Friday the 13th. He was always very lucky with numbers !

Bridge Danger

As a child I lived in Mid-Sussex. At the age of about 10 in 1955, I become trapped with two friends on a very high railway bridge about a quarter of a mile from where I lived, as we attempted to edge our way across a single brick ledge on the outside of the bridge about 80 foot above the tracks. We couldn’t move either way, paralysed with fear, and if we had slipped we would have been killed in the fall. We shouted at every car that passed, and eventually two men on bicycles pulled us over the parapet. I moved from London to Bournemouth in 1982. My Mother died in 1986 from a longstanding illness, and it was thought that she might pass away within a week or two. I was out sailing my boat in Poole Bay the day she died, having seen her the day before and expecting her to live a little longer. Obviously she was in my thoughts. I was sailing back in to Poole Harbour and had to slow and tack to avoid the Sandbanks chain ferry, and as I neared the shore I glanced across and saw an elderly lady who looked exactly like my Mother waving at me, I waved back.

A meaningful coincidence?

A couple of years ago I went to a memorial service for a young woman who had sadly died with her husband in an accident. Having lost a son a few years before I was more than willing to try to comfort this family. After the service I chatted with her parents. Her mother asked me if I believed in 'signs' from the afterlife. I said yes, I certainly do! Just then, someone passed me a copy of the deceased young couple's order of service from their wedding. It was the exact date that I'd married my present husband, although on a different continent! We'd have been saying our vows about 11 hours apart. A friend who'd been there was able to confirm this. I told the young woman's mother, 'There's your sign. It's me.' My son died but I'm still here, because my family need me and they took care of me. Perhaps that was the sign.

An incredible chance meeting

A company which I was jointly managing was in dispute with its JV partner. By chance the company was invited to a presentation meeting in London. As a result of the JV dispute I decided to send one of our staff to this meeting at very short notice. After the presentation he was invited to a table for lunch and introduced to other people on the table. He was introduced to a fellow Wolves supporter and enquired where he lived. It turned out that they lived next door to each other as small children and incredibly shared the same father! They had a long chat and on leaving the meeting agreed to stay in contact and meet up at a later date. One week later the guy he met at the table, which turned out to be his brother, was tragically killed on a quad bike.

Coincidence of names

In 2000, I moved 160 miles from my home town and now work in a larger town where a woman working in the Post Office has the same name as mine. This may not sound unusual but our name is 'Moira' which is fairly unusual. On visiting the Post Office one day, to post a package to my daughter, the Post Office Moira noticed that my daughter lives in Ascot - which is where her daughter also lives. Within a few sentences, we discovered that our daughters are both named Sarah Louise, both are 40 years of age within a few months of each other - and both are married to Jonathans. Both us Moira's also share ongoing platonic friendships with our ex-husbands and, in my case, my husband is also good friends with him. It's also quite a coincidence the number of times Moira serves me in the Post Office, even though it's a very busy Post Office, with half a dozen or so counters open, and a single queue which is controlled by the automatic Post Office system.

Photo coincidence

Some years ago, me,my family of four children and my husband travelled to Florida and stayed in a villa near Disney World. We picked up our hire van at Sandford Airport and spent the next two weeks visiting the sights. Just before we left, my son found a disposable camera under one of the seats in the van. It didn't belong to us and my son decided to take it apart to find out how it worked. I put the film in my bag and forgot all about it. Two or three years later, I found several undeveloped films lying in a cupboard. They were from cameras used by the children and I decided to get them developed. The collection of over-exposed and out of focus pictures were fairly unremarkable. As I opened the last packet of photos, I was pleased to find pictures of Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida. Looking more closely, I was surprised to see children who I didn't recognise, swimming in a pool similar to the one at our villa. I then found a photo of a family group standing by the globe outside Universal Studios and the mother was a lady, Anna, who worked with me as a teaching assistant at a primary school!

Top of the Empire State Building

Our family travelled to New York just before Christmas. We travelled by taxi from Nottingham to Heathrow airport and we were very early so we went for a coffee. We saw our son's ex-headmaster Mr X across the coffee shop, but he did not see us and we were too far away to speak. We had not seen or spoken to him or heard about him for 4 years since our son left school, which was in a different town. We spent our holiday sightseeing in Central Park, Brooklyn, Harlem and the stores. On the 4th day my husband, younger son and I decided to go to the Empire State Building. Although it was very busy when we went to the 82nd floor balcony, we had paid to go up further to the 102nd floor observatory. We were surprised to see our son and his girlfriend on the 82nd floor as they walked past the glass, but we were even more surprised when we joined the 102nd floor lift queue to see Mr X right behind us. When we chatted, he told us that he and his family had not been on our flight, they were in an hotel in a different part of Manhattan and they had onward travel in the USA the next day.

Birthdays in June

My birthday is 17th June; my father's birthday is 14th June; my eldest daughter was born on 18th June; my youngest daughter was born on 14th June; my husband was born on 15th June; and my nephew was born on 16th June (in Australia!). What are the chances?

(Not so)Imaginary friend

About 5 years ago my daughter who was then two had (like many children) an imaginary friend called 'Cully'. We double-checked the name as neither my wife nor I had come across it before and certainly knew no one of that name and could not think where our daughter (Lydia) had found it. Anyway strange as it was we forgot all about it and Cully eventually (according to our daughter) suddenly died! Then about a year ago I was reading 'The Garden' magazine and for the first time ever came across the name 'Cully' used as a Cultivar or named variety of Silver Birch.Intrigued I then Googled the name (we didn't have internet 5 years ago) and found that the name is slang (of unknown origin) for 'pal' or 'friend'. Coincidence or just spooky!

Meeting while Driving

My brother was driving from Idaho to Portland Oregon (350miles, 6.5 hrs) on the same day I was going to be driving from Roseburg Oregon to Idaho (540 miles , 9 hrs-to our parent's place). The day before I jokingly quipped "Meet you at Starbuck's", roughly at the halfway point for him. We did not mention when we would be leaving our respective places and had no real intention of meeting. I ended up making some odd choices of where to get gas, etc. from where I would normally stop. As I stopped at a light in front of Starbucks in the town roughly in the middle for my brother, he was stopped on the other side of the light! We met for coffee after all.

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