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!

Swearing in Swahili!

Nursing patients with artificial hips, it was often my job to walk them down the ward soon after their operation. Some were nervous but they had to be 'got going' on the new joint. One day I was about to escort a splendid elderly gentleman for his first walk. To reassure him, I said 'It might sting a bit so it's OK to swear, as long as it's in Swahili!' - that being the first language I could think of. He gasped in surprise and asked 'How did you know THAT? I spent 20 years with the Army in Kenya and I am fluent in Swahili! I can't WAIT to tell my wife and daughter when they visit tonight!' We positively WALTZED up that ward, and I still have no idea why I chose Swahili.

Date of birth

My dad Jack, his date of birth is exactly the same (when written numerically) as the year he is born 1935. He was born the 1st day of the 9th month (september) in the year 35 = (1935).

Familiar Cottage

In the late 60s when I was a young teacher I travelled by bus every Saturday morning to Wath -on -Dearne where there was a music centre. Part of the journey was on the Dewsbury to Barnsley road.The road was one I hadn't travelled along before. I enjoyed looking out at the countryside. Along the route I passed a pair of cottages which were adjoined and set at right angles to the road. I always looked at one of them in particular which had an apple tree in in front of it. I wished I could get out there and sketch it.There was something about the cottage that drew me to it. I married and came to live in London in 1973. Many years later,sometime after my father died in 1978, when I was visiting family in Yorkshire, I took my aunt out for lunch. She said she knew a good place to eat and directed me along the road from her home in Thornhill towards Barnsley. As I drove along she pointed out a cottage where she remembered going to visit her grandfather when she was a child.It was the same cottage I had seen on my frequent journeys to Barnsley all those years ago. It amused me to think it had been my great grandfather's home.

Passport

I live in Ireland, but went to Uni in Scotland. By chance I was placed in halls of residence with another Irish girl (from a different county). 5 years later, we were best friends. We decided to go backpacking in Australia and got our tickets. I said i'd sort out the visas and needed both of our passport details. Turned out that both Irish passports were 8 years old, both printed on 22nd April 1999, and our passports had only 1 digit separating them, so were printed 1 directly after the other. This was before each of us knew of each other !

right place right time

On holiday in a small fairly remote cottage in south wales with great dane. Good hols but midway after a day on beach the dane seemed distressed and wanted to be sick. 15 mins later looked really poorly. Rang the local vet provided by the cottage owner and got to his surgery 15 mins later. When he looked at Prince he told us it was "bloat" generally terminal in danes (gastric torsion) and that he couldn't help as he was a large animal vet. We asked if there was anyone else and he arranged for us to get to Llanelli, a small town about 12 miles away, where there was a small animal vet, a half hour ride away but told us he thought the dog would be dead by the time we arrived. Hairaising journey but still alive when we got there but only just. Required immediate surgery by the young locum vet who had waited in for us as it was getting quite late. Not hopeful but went back to cottage. Got a call the next morning asking that we collect dog as he was out of his "cage" and not letting anyone in! We thought that was encouraging.

Flat hunting coincidence

Two years ago my fiancée and I, newly engaged, moved from London to Sussex so could study for a masters in experimental psychology. We were struggling to find any suitable flats in budget and on our third trip down to view houses were ready to give up and look elsewhere. As a last ditch effort, we had emailed a private landlord on gumtree about a flat that looked totally unsuitable but had no reply. Before our final house hunting trip down there, I had been googling jewellers in the vicinity as we still had no engagement ring and wanted to have one made. I was strongly drawn to one particular jewellers and we decided we'd tie in a visit on the trip down. As it happens, we got chatting to the jeweller and discovered that he was the husband of the lady who had advertised the flat on gumtree. Furthermore, he too had studied experimental psychology in his youth, and his son was embarking on a very similar degree as my fiancées brother at the same university London that year, and was spending his placement in my childhood home of jersey. We looked at the flat together (which turned out to be lovely) and signed on the spot.

cup and saucer.

I received a cup and saucer from an Aunt who used to own a sweet shop,it was used as a display item,It was very large and used to sit on a dresser.An accident happened and the saucer was broken.The next day while walking to work I went a different way passing a junk shop,in the window was an identical saucer,I asked the owner if I could have a look at it,she replied that it was not valuable without the cup! after buying it I explained about how I had broken one the same the previous day and still had the cup,she then explained that she had only put it in the window the day before. Date 1987 I still have both the cup and saucer sadly the shop is now a house.

Meeting in Boston

Our only trip 'en famille' to Canada and the USA was in 1987. We had been to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia before driving down to Boston where we stayed with friends near by. While there, we went into Boston by underground and at one station, the train made to move off but stopped and the doors opened again for a few minutes. A few more people got on and the train moved off. I was standing, as were the latest passengers and I was aware of one of them near me and my daughter wondered, 'Why is that man looking so strangely at my Dad?' I turned towards him and saw it was a man who I had worked with until the year before. He had arived in the country that day to visit his son. We had not met since I had left Dorset the year before. It felt very strange and indeed the whole carriage was involved in our happy reunion!

old friend USA

In 1978 (aged 27) after living in upstate New York for 6 months, I went to visit an old school friend from England who lived in San Francisco. The day after I arrived, we went to see Van Morrison performing in a tiny bar in a town called Mill Valley, north of the city. Van lived nearby and it was a 'local' gig for him, so was not advertised widely. The bar was packed and towards the end of the evening I exchanged comments about how brilliant the gig was with the person standing next to me. He turned out to be English and was a roadie for a band called Graham Parker and the Rumour. He had arrived in San Francisco just that day. I had heard that a good friend from England, with whom I lived in a shared house for several years (but hadn't seen for about 6 years), was doing some work with the same band. I asked the guy if he knew him and he said he did and that he was in San Franciso. He intended coming to the gig but changed his mind at the last minute. He was so surprised when I turned up at the hotel as he did not know I was living in the USA.

AN EXACT TIME

Travelling through Perth I was listening to an audio book (a Smiley Spy story, I think) when I looked at my watch to see the time at EXACTLY the moment the same time was read out by the audio book. Obviously the time in the book was nothing but a passing reference in the plot but it coincided exactly with my time (but not necessarily the actual exact time... though it may have been).

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