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.

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Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Triple birthday coincidence

After a few months of dating, my girlfriend (now wife) discovered we shared the same birthday but 7 years apart. Two years later our first child was born on the same day Me.........30/10/57 Katy.......30/10/64 Lewis.....30/10/84 What are the chances.......? The story was gathered up by most of the local and national media but placed (understandardly) second to the reported death of Indira Ghandi (30/10/84) As it happens, until I was sixteen I thought my birthdate was 31/10/57 until a copy of my birth certificate proved otherwise! Grahame C, Glasgow, Scotland

Triple birthday coincidence

After a few months of dating, my girlfriend (now wife) discovered we shared the same birthday but 7 years apart. Two years later our first child was born on the same day Me.........30/10/57 Katy.......30/10/64 Lewis.....30/10/84 What are the chances.......? The story was gathered up by most of the local and national media but placed (understandardly) second to the reported death of Indira Ghandi (30/10/84) As it happens, until I was sixteen I thought my birthdate was 31/10/57 until a copy of my birth certificate proved otherwise! Grahame Connolly, Glasgow, Scotland

Move back in time

In 1980 my family had to sell their farm in Crosshouse, Ayrshire due to a new road being built. The family had been there for years with various generations being born in that area back to my great grand father and beyond we believed. We moved to a farm in Darvel some 10 - 15 miles away, an area where we did not know anyone. In the 1990's I started a school project on local history and looked at Census records for 1851and discovered a family with the same surname as ours living at the same farm in Darvel. With a little bit of investigation I discovered that it was in fact my g g g grandfather and his family so we had returned by chance to the exact same farm and also to the area where my family originates from. Before that we had joked about the names on the gravestones in the cemetry bearing the surname as being our relatives and in fact they all were!

Boxing Day Tsunami

On late Christmas night 2004 I was reading the end of Michael Crichton's thriller "State of Fear" which had, as part of its final climax, the generation of a huge tsunami (by eco-terrorists). The time I was reading this part must have been within minutes of the generation of tragic Indian Ocean tsunami which took place around 0100 UTC 2004.

Years old Mystery finally Solved

As a teenager I lived in a block of flats. One of the more flamboyant inhabitants was a Mr W, whom I knew well. He worked in the Middle East and came back to the flat from time to time on leave. He was married to a hospital Matron who worked out there. After many years, he suddenly returned to England and never went back. His wife did not return with him but came back years later. He categorically refused to talk to anyone about the reasons why he had returned so suddenly and they remained a mystery, even after his death. Many years later my husband and I were drinking in a bar in Ireland in a small country village called Durrus, near Bantry when a man came in gasping for breath. We got talking and I asked about his breathing problem. He told us that, whilst working out in the Middle East he had been in an accident with a lorry and had suffered severe chest injuries. He said his life had been saved by the Matron of the hospital, who had looked after him when he was in intensive care. Out of curiosity I asked the name of this Matron and he gave the name of W which matched that of the person I knew in the flats. I then asked if he had ever heard of Mr W?

bermuda flight coincidence

I was returning on a flight from London/Bermuda when with about 45 mins to arrival, the captain gave out a message over the intercom.This prompted the young lady sitting next to me , who had previously not spoken , to ask me if I had flown direct from London.I replied Manchester, wherupon she said she had flown from Nice.She then said she was Bermudan & was coming home to arrange her wedding to the father of the 13yr old girl sitting next to her. She then said she worked on a luxury yacht based in the South of France, whereupon I replied that my son was a captain of a yacht & was also off Nice,she asked me the name of the yacht , which I told her & explained that he had just moved onto a new one. She then got very excited & was able to tell me my sons name & indeed that she had had dinner with him& her partner the previous night in Antibes ! She then told me that the young girls father whom she was marrying had just left the yacht he captained & my son had taken over from him. What a coincidence being on a flight to Bermuda & sitting next to someone who had dined with my son in the South of France the previous evening !!

Words

Is it much of a coincidence to hear a word spoken (in conversation, on the television or radio) at precisely the same moment that one is reading or writing the same word in a completely different context? Seems to happen to me all the time - even with unlikely words like 'elephant', 'convoluted' and 'Haberdasher'.

holiday surprise

In 1955 I took a coach tour with a friend to Italy, amongst the party and within the smaller group with which we got friendly was a guy, Tony from Swindon. 4 or 5 years later, on a coach tour to Austria (different company, different friends) and dancing in our St Anton hotel I spotted Tony, also with a different coach company and just passing through, not even in our hotel as I recall. Is that the kind of coincidence you are looking for, I found it a bit weird.

Wrong car

A few years ago, my daughter and I went shopping in Watford, Hertfordshire, parking our maroon Renault Savanna estate car in a multi-storey car park. Returning to the car park later, we went to what we thought was the correct floor where, what we supposed was our car was parked. On trying the key in the lock I found that I couldn't open the door. Peering inside I realised it was not our car. The coincidences were: the same make, model and colour vehicle parked in the same position on the floor above where our car was parked. In addition, the registration number differed by only one digit. I found the coincidence so amazing that I went and bought a Lottery ticket, one of the few occasions I have ever done so. Needless to say, I didn't win - not even a tenner!

USA - SALFORD

In 1973 I and many others visited California under a scheme called "Meet the Americans" which was devised by American teachers to celebrate the Bicentennial of The Declaration of Independence. I was 'billeted' in San Diego with a delightful family called Schmauss and had a wonderful time. Some ten years later, I was working as secretary to a professor at the University of Salford; he was also a writer and one day a representative from a publishing company came to interview him. The young man was too early, and he and I chatted for a while. He then asked me if I had ever been to the States, I said 'Yes'. He asked was it in San Diego, and was it - I knew at once what was coming - with a family called Schmauss? (My name was on my door, of course.) We exchanged memories and experiences for just a few minutes, and that was it!

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