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!

Meeting

My friend and I were discussing old childhood friends , in particular one we lost contact with over 30 years previously, a week later I had stopped my motorcycle in a small town (Carnwath)for a break , although I had passed through this place quite often this was the first time I had ever stopped there. As I took of my helmet I looked up and saw who turned out to be the very person we had discussed walking past.

Its not your time.

I am 52 yo,and searching for home,but don't know where my real home is.I know this because of the Coincidences i have experienced and should not really be here,but like all humans you learn to go with the flow. 1st Experience was when I was 5yo I was in hospital,for drinking some strange liquid thinking it to be Orange juice.While surrounded by doctors,my 'other Self' was 'Hovering in the corner watching all the commotion,and it felt 'normal'. 2nd Experience at 9yo I vividly recall having an "out of body experience"literally my other Self lifted itself out of the physical and Floated out with the aid of a Silvery cord to my mothers neighbours tree I could not stay long and had to Return. 3rd Experience.Nearly drowned on holiday by swimming out a few hundred meters,I panicked did not have the energy to swim back.Was told to hang on for the next massive wave which would Rescue me.The sea was perfectly calm at the time. 4th Experience.At 14yo I grabbed through distraction the 'Live and Neutral cables while Experimenting with a radio I had just built.I Panicked as I could not Let go or move a muscle.Was told to Use Willpower,so w

Chance encounter

In the mid-1990’s, I was attending an education conference at Exeter University; neither I nor my colleague felt like attending the formal dinner in the evening, so we decided to eat away from the conference. We decided to head out of the city to a local country pub (I’d never visited it before); during the car journey there, our conversation focussed upon the Americans and their bombing of Tripoli in 1986 – we discussed issues of whether the bombing could be morally justified. On arrival at the pub, we were the only people there and proceeded to order food. Not long afterwards, a man (a stranger to both of us) walked in and sat at another table with a drink. After awhile, since we were the only people in the room, we struck up conversation. It transpired that he had spent some time abroad in the past. After talking for awhile, we asked him where he had been. “Libya”, he replied – “I got out of Tripoli just before the bombs came down...”

exorcist

For some reason I suddenly wondered what the theme tune to the exorcist was - it was played on the radio 5min later! Freaked me out a bit as I have never even or wanted to watch the film and really don't like anything to do with the supernatural This was years ago but listening to Radio 4 today reminded me of this.

Mrs Shirley S

Artefact Last week, illness induced me to watch a daytime episode of 'Flog It'. An unusual lot - a watch 'chain' made of human hair (Victorian mourning token) was offered for sale at auction. After the programme I returned to the book I was reading, entitled 'Possession' by A S Byatt, and within a few pages I read of an identical artefact, so I was able to picture it perfectly.

Age of Death coincidence?

We have recently discovered a spooky co-incidence in our family His mother was one of six sisters, and one brother. Michael's father died when he was 72, his mother died a few years later when she was 72 and last November his brother died after three and a half years in a persistent vegatative state only 3 days before his 73rd birthday, so he was 72 as well yet had had years of 'being able' to die from any number of problems associated with the PVS. At my Brother in Law's funeral I was talking to the wife of one of Michael's cousins. The cousin had died aged 72 earlier in 2011 and the wife told me that of the last 11 deaths in the cousinry family all of them had been within 6 months either side of being 72 or 72 itself. We find this a very peculiar co-incidence, as the causes of death have all been very different. We'd love to know what the chances are of Michael dying at 72, but would we really? Interesting.

a house in Hampstead by James Thirsk

In about 1953 when my wife and I were visiting my father and mother in the Cortswolds, Dad suddenly said on the way back from a car ride, that he would take us to see his first cousin Dr Clow, who lived in a village nearby. We had interesting talks with Dr Clow and his wife Alice, also a retired doctor. Just as we were leaving Dr Clow asked my wife and me to step into his study. There he pointed to a fine framed photogrsph of the Parthenon. 'That was given to me', he said, ' by Henry Beauchamp Walters, the Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum.' 'Oh', I said, 'He once owned the house in Hampstead, where we now live.' 'Alice', he called,' Come and hear this!' It turned out that Walters was her uncle and that she had often stayed with him and his wife when she was a girl.

Today programme interview

I listened to the interview with the Professor on the Today programme this morning, 14th January 2012 and later turned the page on my Angel calendar to the saying/thought for today 14th January 2012 which reads as follows: "IT'S NOT YOUR IMAGINATION. SOMETIMES A "COINCIDENCE" COMES WITH A LOT OF ANGELIC EFFORT". Certainly some effort made this morning!! Lin

Never Again

In June 1995 my wife and I were touring the Dingle Peninsular. We decided to stop for lunch at the next place we came to, a small village the name of which I cannot now remember. We parked and walked down to the road junction and picked one of the two possible pubs. As we came to the door a woman approached from the opposite direction so that we arrived and entered simultaneously. We were the only customers. The landlady asked for our orders and obviously knew the woman who had entered with us. We gave our orders and the landlady asked the woman who her friends were. She explained that she didn't know us and that we had simply arrived at the same moment. The landlady said that she had thought we were friends because we were also English. In conversation it then transpired that not only did this woman, who owned a small cottage in the village, actually live in St Leonards-on-Sea (Sussex) but also lived in a house not 50 meters from our own home in St Leonards-on-Sea. We had not ever seen each other prior to this encounter, nor have we since. !

Fated to meet?

In 1980 I was in Edinburgh at the Festival and a friend of mine was in a play - I went to see him at his lodgings and while there another cast member arrived. I thought him rather dishy and so chatted him up a bit and it transpired that we were both going down to London on the same train so I said I'd come and find him. These trains are always packed so imagine my surprise when I found that the seat I'd booked in advance was right next to his! Obviously I thought this was Fate! (at the time)

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