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!

chance meeting

My friends and I went to Toronto for spring break because it’s much cheaper than going somewhere warm. While we were there, we ran into 2 other students who also attend our university who were also there on break. We already knew these 2 from school, so we decided to meet back up and go out to the bars on a Monday night. Obviously, bar crawling on a Monday night is kind of pointless. Most places are entirely empty if not closed by 8pm. So, it’s 1am and we’re in a bar with probably 10 people in it. The bartender asks if we’re on break and we say yes. He hears what university we’re from and he looked shocked. It turns out that there was a group of 3 girls on the other side of the bar who also went to university with us! We started to talking to them about how cool of a coincidence this was and then we were trying to see if we had any friends in common. One of them is actually best friends with my roommate and the other 2 live in the same dorm as me! They all also lived on the same floor as one of my other very good friends. Small world

hometown

I go to an out-of-state college and, while my hometown has it’s own university, it isn’t well-known and the attendance is very low. Only 2 people from my entire hometown go to the college I attend currently, which has something like 60,000 students. That being said, no one has heard of my hometown unless they’re a professor. At my first college party, I walked up to a random person and started talking to her. She said she had just transferred and I asked from where. It turns out she transferred from my hometown college! I have yet to meet a student who has even heard of my hometown college and the first person I talked to I at my first college party used to attend there.

Birthdays

My childhood best friend was born 2 weeks late and I was born 2 weeks early. My due date was December 29 but I was born December 11. Her due date was December 11 but she was born December 29.

Guessing game

One time a new friend was talking about how she tries to write down all of her friends’ birthdays and asked for mine. Joking around, I told her to guess. Lo and behold she guessed it right without any hints. Then she told me I had to guess hers and I also guessed hers right! We had never had conversations about birthdays before and there was no way for her to find out my birthday before this conversation. We didn’t even know each other’s star signs or birth seasons and we both randomly guessed each other’s birthdays right within a minute of each other. It’s been a year and we still talk about it.

Childhood game

As a child, my friends and I came up with this very specific make believe world for us to play pretend at recess. It had something to do superheroes and each villain we fought had a backstory etc, etc. Cut to 20 years later, I was talking to my girlfriend at the time and she mentioned playing a game that was way too similar to mine to be an accident. It turns out that, even though we went to different kindergartens a town apart, she had a friend who played with my group one time and brought the game to their playground too. This isnt the weirdest story in the world, but this game stuck with both of us until we were in like 4th grade so it’s pretty cool that the game she loved so much as a kindergartener actually originated from my friend group a town over.

Too many dates, numbers & names! Not Coincidence & want some understanding

me & my daughter both at the same time were dating guys birthdays June 3. one was born in 1962 & the other was 1985. My mothers b-day is April 9,1953 my boyfriends friend which is my enemy, his b-day is April 9th as well. My father died on April 18,1981 a day before easter My daughters dad died April 17, 2017 a day after easter. We became good friends with a guy before my daughters dad died, his name is Sean. My name is Shawn. His sisters name is Donna, So is mine. They both live in the same town. His dad also past away on Easter 2002. Phone #'s had the last four numbers the same for my daughters 2 boyfriends around the same time her father passed. I just think their is a messege their that I'm not getting & it is driving me to know . Please, if someone has any answers you can send me an email at gatlinburd1@yahoo.com or send me something on facebook under Shawn Timberlake in Picayune,ms. Thankyou!!! Hope to see what you have to say or see what u think!!!

Ms

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Axiom of Maria Prophetissa Insight

In the summer of 2018, I was on my morning walk along Dallas Road in Victoria, BC and approaching Cook Street a few blocks up ahead when I see a coin lying on the old dark cement sidewalk. I pick it up. It is a Loonie - a Canadian 1-dollar coin. I continue to walk and almost immediately I come upon another coin - this time it is a Toonie -a Canadian 2-dollar coin. Looking up ahead a little further I see two more coins; another Loonie and another Toonie. 4 coins which sum to 6 Canadian dollars. It stopped me in my tracks. I was so mystified that I was barely struck by this very meaningful coincidence. It immediately reminded me of C.G. Jung's definition of Synchronicity as being an acausal connecting principle. I had been struggling for years to understand a Jungian analyst’s interpretation of the alchemical axiom of Maria Prophetissa which says, "Out of the One comes Two, out of Two comes Three, and from the Third comes the One as the Fourth. Like this the Two become One." According to the author of "Return of the World Soul; Wolfgang Pauli, C.G.

Chain of Coincidences

Real story: Coming from work one day, I had two errands to do beto the fore finally hpost offeading home. I had to buy one item at a small store and pick up my mail from my P. O. Box. Both sites were on the same road, the and the intersection to my road was between them. So it would have made sense to stop at the store first as it was on the way to the post office. But since the post office closed first I decided to go there first, just in case. While there I saw a student from the college at which I taught. We talked about financial aid and I mentioned my Mom went to Normal School tuition free. It turned out her Grandmother and my Mother were both residing at the same nursing home at the time. My Church had a service for the residents upcoming and I vowed I'd get an invitation the Grandmother. Both ladies did attend, but that was only the start of the chain. It turns out that Grandmother was the mother of a fellow I was in second grade with, a class taught by my Mother! The student was his niece. It also turned out that Grandmother ate lunch each day with another resident who was from my Church!

Summoning a break-in

I was googling for the first time if break-ins happened a lot in my neighborhood and that exact same night I went to bed and heard some footsteps by my window. The next day I looked and clearly, you could see in the snow someone walked from the sidewalk right to my window and tried to open it.

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