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!

Coincidental cousins

My mother came to England from Ireland in 1946 and married and settled here in Devon. One of her brothers also moved to England and lived in Roehampton. I met his daughters when I went to Ireland for a holiday when I was about 10 and they were 11 & 9. When I was 18 I went to London for the first time with my then boyfriend, a Londoner. We only went for the day, saw a football match and met up with his friends at a club in a converted mill. I saw a girl across the club and said I thought it was my cousin, even though I'd only met her once but I never approached her. 20 years later my cousin and I met again in Ireland, and in the conversation she asked if I had ever been at this club back in the 1970s. It seems that she saw me too but we never approached each other as we had felt it so unlikely and she'd always wondered. Incidentally when we chatted we found that we both worked for the same branch of a government department, had joined in the same year and did the same job, she in Cambridgeshire and me in Devon.

Sam

My son was born the same day as my sisters little boy a year apart!

The other side of the earth

In 1967 when I was a teenager I went by train to visit my boyfriend in Leeds. On the journey I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me. He informed me that he was from New Zealand and was on a working holiday. I said that I had a pen friend from the North Island of New Zealand and he said he was also from the North Island. I asked him whereabouts he lived and he said it was a very small place called Rongakako. I said thats a coincidence as my pen friend also lives in Rongakako. He said what address? I said Brown Street (I am not 100% sure of the name of the street now as it was 45 years ago) he said this is so stange I live in Browne street number 10.................In total amazement I said, my pen friend lives at number 5. He said that he didnt know her personally as she was away at a boarding school in Masterton, but he was a friend of her brothers.

Unlikely meeting

About 14 years ago, one of my best friends was fed up with her teaching job in the UK and applied to do an exchange in Australia - she was successful and agreed an exchange with a man from South Australia who came over to live in my friend's 2 up, 2 down in Lancashire with his wife, while my friend took on his small holding in the Adelaide Hills. My friend was going on her own, and as I had grown up in Australia (Melbourne) I offered to go out with her to help her settle in and to have a 3 week holiday with her before she started work.

Birthday coincidence

My granddaughter Lily was born on the 8/9/10 at 11.12am. We said right from the start that she was special!

Renting room from unknown landlady who was friend's friend

In February 2001 I moved from Nottingham to London, renting a room in a house that I had found via the listings in Loot. I had not met the landlady Katherine before my initial viewing. I lived there quite happily for nearly a year. In the summer of 2001 I met Jodie, a school friend of 15 years, for dinner and was telling her about the room, the landlady and the domestic situation. It transpired that Katherine was the sister of one of Jodie's best friends from her time at University; that she knew the house and the family.

Long distance friend

I was just about to message a friend who is living a couple of hours away, just as i was about to send it his girlfriend text me saying he had come up to visit her as a surprise and was downstairs.

A glutton for punishment ?

My birth date is 6th May , I was married to my husband for 21 years , then we divorced . Seven years later my ex husband started a new partnership , with another Taurean , born on 6th May ! This partnership lasted seven years . The ' perceived' Taurean characteristics were a 'bone of contention ' in both cases with this particular male Saggitarian. The partner and I , and my children and grandhildren have all become firm friends ...however , no contact at all ,in either case , with said husband / partner ... To date my English ex husband, now on his third partnership / marriage , has had partnerships with Scottish , Lithuanian and Chinese women ... some food for thought ?

coincidences

I was thinking about coincidence when, at that very moment, I heard the piece on coincidence on Radio 4 ... what a coincidence. I often muse upon how annoying the Archers are ... and yet equally often hear the introductory theme ... Standard procedure is to bolt to the radio and to hit the off button with force ... but what a coincidence. The other day I was wistfully reflecting upon my general lack of funds - and at about that time I discovered my wallet was empty ... what a coincidence. The weather forecast is generally wrong and a greater degree of coincidence is surely desirable here. Coincidently, I recommend Carl Jung on synchronicity. You will never believe who just knocked at my door?

a meeting near Boston Mass.(USA)

I was holidaying with a group in New England,about 15 years ago.We went to a Pilgrim Fathers museum outside Boston.I happened to say to a group member that I knew Boston in Lincolnshire.At that moment,a stranger walked by asking me where I was from.Lincoln I replied(although I live near Bath).He also came from Lincoln,so he asked what part,I told him Swanpool.We then discussed junior school and it turned out that his aunt was my paternal grandmother's best friend!He asked me my surname:Elvin,he recognized it as my father was a local historian,and this man had some of his books! The man'sname was Needham,it transpired that his family were butchers in the market area.When I later saw my mother she confirmed that her father(my maternal grandfather)sold the Needhams their butchers shop many years ago! .....rather a lot of coincidences with a stranger 3000 miles from home! Andy E

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