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!

Objet trouvé

November 2011. My wife and I were walking home through the streets of Cologne on the night in the month when people can put unwanted furniture and household objects out on the pavement to be collected the next morning by the refuse authority. I spotted a pile of such refuse at the far end of a street and suggested we crossed over to have a look. You are allowed to take anything you want from such 'Sperrmüll'. "We have enough junk," said my wife. "What do you hope to find?" "Who knows? Maybe somebody's thrown out a Modigliani." When we got to the pile I saw the top of a canvas behind some dismantled furniture. I pulled it out and found it was Modigliani's "Testa Scultorea" - not the original, sadly, but an IKEA print. I like Modigliani but not more than many other artists and I certainly hadn't thought of him in recent months. We took the canvas home and later gave it to my brother, who is an artist, to paint over.

Birthday Cards

My twin brother and I selected and gave each other the same birthday cards from branches of the same card company 120 miles apart over a period of 3 or 4 years.

Your wish is my command!

I am a Spanish teacher and was shopping in a well-known supermarket. As I went through the check-out I saw a small ads notice board and the thought just went through my head to ask the customer services if I could put an advert re language tutoring. She said it wasn't normally allowed for businesses to advertise, but she would let me have an advert for just one week! Two days later I got a call from a lady who was desperately seeking a Spanish teacher for her grand-daughter. She had been looking everywhere for one and had been so grateful and happy to see my advert. Was it the vibes that she was sending out that made me place that advert?

Artistic Coincidence

I was recently idly listening to an old recording of "Steptoe and Son" on Radio 4 Extra, whilst at the same time glancing through a book containing water colour sketches of places in Somerset. In the radio show Harold was berating his father for removing a painting from a frame and burning it, because Dad assumed that only the frame had any value. Harold said it was a "Burn Jones" - the joke being of course that it was now "Burnt Jones" I had never heard of this artist and assumed the name was ficticious. At the same time I glanced at the next page of my book, which contained a picture of a stained glass window made by --- Burne Jones.

SUE B

XMAS DAY-GAVE MY NEICE-A TEASET.SO DID HER MUM.EXCHANGED PRESENT TO NEPHEW-A FOOD HAMPER.OPENED PRESENT FROM HIM TO ME-FOODHAMPER.MY DAUGHTER{BORN ON MY BIRTHDAY}RANG FROM AUS-SHE & HER PARTNER CYCLED TO FAMILY'S HOUSE WITH TORCHES TIED TO THEIR HEADS!MY OTHER NEPHEW TOLD ME HE HAD TAKEN HIS NEPHEW IN THE GARDEN,LOOKING FOR SANTA IN THE DARK {IN DEVON} HE PUT TORCHES ON THEIR HEADS TO SEE!THEN I OPENED A PRESENT FROM MY NEICE-A CD OF MICHAEL BUBLE.IDENTICAL TO THE CD I SENT TO MY YOUNGER BROTHER IN CANADA!WE HAVE RECENTLY LOST OUR LOVELY FRIEND.MUM.WIFE,SISTER FROM CANCER-I WONDER IF SHE WAS PROVING SHE WAS THERE!

new and old coincidences with a new aquaintance

I had moved to a small village in North Yorkshire to be near my son after living in Scotland and having grown up in Surrey. One day in church in my Yorkshire village I sat next to a woman I had not seen before and chatted to her. She had just arrived in the village to be near her daughter, coming from 'London'. It turned out that she had been married in the Surrey church where I worshipped in my childhood. The nest Sunday, she brought me a cutting from a newspaper dated 1926, which was a description of her mother's wedding at which my mother had sung a solo. This was the year before my mother was married and having an unusual maiden name (and married name) I have no doubt but that it was my mother. Furthermore, the first house my sister and her husband lived in happened to lie between that of my new aquaintance's aunt's house on one side and her cousin's on the other side. Both these ladies were leaders of the Girl's Life Brigade to which my sister and I had belonged. When I opened the door of my house this morning, the first person I saw was my new aquaintance................

Phone call

Me and my best friend once ed eachother at the exact same time. The phone didn't even ring for either of us. We were connected immediately. That was strange!

Felicity S

My husband was staying with a friend in New York just before travelling across the US. His friend was expecting 2 other friends to join her who were travelling the US from the west coast over to New York. When he was on his journey, he stopped at a diner. It was pretty empty but there were 2 other English people having their meal there. Being a gregarious soul he stopped to have chat with them. Of course they were the 2 other friends on route to his friend in New York. They then bought a post card and all signed it and sent it to their New York friend. They had never met before.

Friend coincidence

About 13 years ago my daughter started a new school and made friends with a girl in her class. I got on really well with her mother who was older than me and we became good friends meeting up and socialising. A while before this I had gone back to university part time in a different part of London and had got in with a group of women who I also made friends with and socialised with. Amongst this group was a woman a few years younger than me. These separate friendships continued for some time and at an event my university friend turned up with her partner and children. For the first time we talked about children and where we lived and to our surprise we found we lived close to each other and our children went to the same school although in different year groups. We made an agreement to keep an eye out for each other the next time we were picking our children up. A while later I saw my younger friend at the school and she was talking to my older friend. To my amazement when I went up to talk to them I discovered my older friend was actually the mother of my younger friend and my daughters best friend was her very much younger sister.

Meeting an old colleague in Thailand

Whilst on my gap year I travelled to the island of Koh Phagnan. My friend and I found the most remote hostel on the island as far off the beaten track as possible. We were having breakfast and I noticed a guy sitting near by who I found really familiar.... I couldnt resist the urge so I went over to speak to him. It turns out we had worked together in the same restaurant, in the same town just six months before. Small world!

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