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!

Engraving in the door

It was 2007 in Christchurch, New Zealand and I had recently moved into a new share-house. I was in bed one night before I turned off the lights and noticed an engraving in the door, which had been covered with brown paint. I got out of bed and started towards the door. I ran my hands over the words "I HATE MY LIFE" in capital letters. After that night, I often imagined who did that, a child? What was their life like? I was 18 at the time and had met a girl at a party, a few weeks later she'd agreed to come over for drinks. I gave her my address and she immediately said, "WEIRD, THAT WAS MY FAMILY HOME". When she approached the house she asked if she could look around, and how strange it was years later to re-visit. She walked up the stairs and straight into my bed room, I followed after her. She closed the door and ran her hands over the engraving and said "Haha it's still here". I couldn't believe it, it was her. Same house, same room....

Bats

I've had terrible anxiety since yesterday because a co-worker saw a bat outside our building and I am terrified of bats. Jump to today and I'm shelving some books and one of the books drops onto the floor, and on the cover of the book is an illustration of a bat!

Time

Over the last 6 months or so I have been waking up at an hour +20 minutes. (12:20, 3;20 ex.) and even during the day I find myself randomly looking at the clock and it is often exactly 20 minutes after the hour. I don't do drugs, I have no paranormal beliefs or have any religious beliefs, but this is starting to bug me.

Home

I have lived on the same street in different houses twice, as I can remember nine times. Once was 4 houses on the same road. Most of the two times were consecutive. Also 2 houses in the same development, twice. My older two children were born on the same street in different homes.

Dead Music Artist and a movie

I was working out and was listening to music on Youtube. I decided to search Kurt Cobain music videos. Off all the videos I picked one of Kurt being interviewed by a book reporter. Kurt was asked what was his last book he read. Kurt answered that he read PERFUME at least 14 times while flying and he briefly described the contents and could personally relate to the main character. Well I am a big movie watcher. I never heard of the book nor the movie. That evening I turned my TV on to Pluto TV of all the movies I could of watched I tuned right into the movie PERFUME.

how i met my wife

in my university days i spent a lot of time in the computer lab chatting on this local-network only server. one fellow took a liking to me, and we met in person and started hanging out outside of the university setting. one day he left for a student conference, came back and told me he had met someone he thinks i should hook up with so gave me this girl's email address. anyway so i emailed her. after a few weeks of emailing back and forth it turned out that she lived around the corner (like a 5 minute walk) from this place in another city that i always used to visit during my school holidays. and that her grandfather and my mum's uncle were best friends at some point. and that her father who grew up in my city but moved to her city to marry her mum had actually lived a stone's throw from the house my grandfather lived in and then later died in. also my mum and my now wife's uncle were in the same circle of friends growing up (even hung out with each other when they were younger).

quantum entanglement

started around may of last year, i started seeing synchronicities everywhere but this one was uncanny. i was for whatever reason in a rabbit hole looking up terms about quantum physics that i didn't really understand. i had this video about quantum physics and entanglement that was playing in a web browser and i would kind of go in and out of focus and had it playing in the background for like 2-30 minutes already. then, i go and start reading an article about quantum entanglement from a completely separate resource and as i was reading the first or second paragraph it synced up word for word for the introduction to what quantum entanglement was. literally as i was reading it the video was saying the same thing... got chills.

Moving

Long story short I found my grandma bible in my mom house after my mom passed a way the house was in our family for year need work so we sold it and moved well in her bible was the church she went to when she was younger just so happend that church was in walking distance of my new house???

Doing good in the world and winning the lottery

Anyone else ever experience lots of mind-blowing synchronicity for an extended period of time? Twice in my life it has happened for at least three straight months. It always happens when I'm feeling amazing and being true to myself. When abandon all the rules and just do whatever I feel is just, right and loving. And usually it happens while I'm falling in love with a girl. But it's almost like I am led to the girl through the coincidences. It's very strange and it's such an interesting thing to talk about. There's just too much to say about it, it would be like a book if I were to remember it all. Here's one though. My grandmom's name was Margaret. My lucky number is 711 (a psychic told me). My grandmom was always trying to win the lottery and never could, up until she died. She wanted to give her grandkids the money. One night, I was helping a friend (a girl) who was in a bad situation with her ex and family and she needed someone. She called me crying, of which both of those things are not like her at all. So I left my job to go get her. She was really drunk and falling over when I got there.

Patterns with girlfriends

So there's a girl interested in me and I'm trying to figure out whether she's good for me or not. The other night, I couldn't sleep so I looked at Instagram, which I never do (ever). And came across my ex's page (from 4 years ago). She didn't have many posts, but there was a picture of food from Core Life Eatery saying she loves the place. I have to been to the place many times before. Anyway, the next day I was going to get something to eat and was driving to get a hoagie when I saw I had a coupon for Core Life in my car for basically a free meal. So I couldn't pass that up. The moment in walk in the door, she's there, looking at me from across the room. What are the odds of that? Timing, everything. Also, on her Instagram, she had a post about a new tattoo she got of a man's face on her leg. The girl who is interested in me now also has a tattoo of a man's face on her leg in the same spot. Also, both are massage therapists. Seems it is a pattern repeating itself in my life. I have a million more stories like this... seriously

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