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!

Two calls in one

In the late 70's I was living in a shared house in Oxford, there was a communal pay phone in the hall which also accepted incoming calls. One day the phone was ringing and I happened to answer it and two voices simultaneously asked to speak to me, one was a friend in London and the other was a friend in Bristol and they did not know each other!

My Great Aunt

A few years ago when I first came to Crieff I had a discussion with a local aquintance who asked me why I had come to stay in Scotland from England. I told him that as a boy I used to spend my summer holidays in Edinburgh and had fond memories of playing golf and also of my Great Aunt who used to come and see my Grandmother and my Aunt when I was staying. I particularly remembered sitting in her Austin A30 with her and she used to drive me around Edinburgh and as she was an expert knitter writing knitting patterns for Womans Own and other magazines. My one regret was that I did not have a photograph of her and her Austin A30. My friend David had just been to the local library to collect some of his photographs which he had taken as a youth, he then said was your great aunt's A30 like this one. To my utter amazement there was my Great Aunt Garland Galbraith captured in the snow driving through Crieff in 1958 in her beloved A30!! David kindly gave me the picture which I treasure and we have been good friends ever since. Duncan B

Met stranger twice

Travelling for work in Zimbabwe and met a guy in the hotel bar that grew up v.close to me; this is not the coincidence. He neither knew me, my father (local business owner) or anyone I knew despite having lived within 5-miles of each other for several years. We went our merry way in the world. I was installing an inter-country metering system between Zim and Moambique. He was installing a mobile phone network. Was in a bar in Jordan chatting to a colleague when a voice asks. This may be a strange question but were you in a bar in Harare, Zimbabwe 7 years ago. I was, and clearly so was he. What are the chances of inadvertantly bumping into someone you don't know, and have nothing in common with, in two entirely different countries. Note: I rarely go on holiday and fail to meet someone I know.

Family ties

Aunt, husband and cousins go to new life in Australia in 1952. In 1976 I went to visit first staying with an inlaw of my cousin in Sydney. After I made a small trip to northern Australia I returned to the inlaws ready to embark on a trip to see the family in deep, rural New South Wales. There in the house were extra house guests, my uncle (aunt's husband's) sister and her husband. So I offered to take them to Griffith some 400 miles west of Sydney. So for the first time in 24 years both my aunt and uncle received close relatives for the first time from the UK who had never met before and were unknown to each other before the trip from Sydney. It was a great morale support for my aunt who was in hospital recovering from a cancer operation and had little idea anyone was coming (my visit was notified, the other was a surprise). Add on My brother moved north from Somerset having lived in southern England for the first 60 years of his life. On sending a Christmas card to my cousin in Australia she wrote back and said he was living in Garstang Lancs.

Place

I was sitting having breakfast in a hotel in Hong Kong and started chatting to a fellow guest- and discovered she lived next door to my parents' old home in a tiny Kent hamlet.

Place coincidence

I was sitting having breakfast in a hotel in Hong Kong and started chatting to a fellow guest- and discovered she lived next door to my parents' old home in a tiny Kent hamlet.

Birth-dream

I dreamt (early one morning) that I was in a hosptial with a friend who was pregnant (I have never dreamt about her before. I see her once or twice a year, although she sees my parents more frequently). We were walking around the hospital while she was in labour. When I woke up I told my parents about the dream, jokingly asking if there was any news on her pregnancy (I knew she was due around this time). They had not heard anything. They called back a few hours later. She gave birth at 9am that morning. She was in labour when I was having my dream!

Place coincidence

I was sitting having breakfast in a hotel in Hong Kong and started chatting to a fellow guest- and discovered she lived next door to my parents' old home in a tiny Kent hamlet.

Meeting Abroad

I attended Grammar School in Lancashire 1951-1954. Year 2 saw my class mistress as a Miss R who taught latin although never teaching me. We spent 16 years in South africa; I followed a career in engineering 1982 - 1998. Over 30 years from last knowing Ms R, I needed a piece of equipment to fit to a boiler. I had seen a technical rep. with the name R who left me with a brochure describing the various options of equipment available. I eventually chose the particular model, but still had a few questions re. the size and application. I decided to visit the issuing office in Benoni ....a suburb of Johannesburg. Mr R was not available, but the receptionist said I could speak to his father. I said to his father that I thought his name was unusual(thought it was Prosser). He confirmed that he was Welsh and that the name was of Welsh origin. I stated that I once had a teacher named Peggy R . He confirmed that was his Aunt!!!

Family Birthdays

My name is Pamela. I have four children - Adrian, Angela, Simon and Charlotte. Polly, Adrian's wife and my daughter Charlotte gave birth to a daughter and son, respectively, within half an hour of each other on the same day,22 September. This also hapens to be Adrian's birthday. Also, Adrian's son Joe and Charlotte's daughter Ruby share a birthday, 28 January - six years apart. My son's wife, Elizabeth, has a daughter, Kate, from a previous marriage and she shares my birthday, 16th July. (Quite a few years apart!).

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