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!

German Irish vehicular collision

In 1995 I took up the offer of a call centre job in Tallaght near Dublin. A good friend of mine who was doing doctoral research at UCD put me in touch with a fellow student who had just taken a lease on a house together with his wife and were looking for a lodger. Over the course of my first few months in the Republic I got to know David, the student, quite well. He told me that he had spent time in Lindau, a town in southern Germany, where he had worked in a vineyard. On one occasion he showed me photos taken during a cycling trip around Swabia, one of which was of an unusual vehicle he had seen parked on the road near Reutlingen. It was a classic VW camper but with the top sliced off and replaced with the top half of a Citroen 2CV, making a rather ungainly looking mini double decker bus. Some months later, while I was working on the German-speaking team at the call centre, a fresh wave of recruits brought with it one Stephan Gaertner, a native of Reutlingen. Getting to know Stephan better, he told me of a project he had once embarked on to build an unusual vehicle.

chance meeting

We were in Porto Colom on Majorca on 22nd April 1988 after wintering aboard our boat SAGITTAIRE in Palma on the second year into our 6 year livaboard trip from UK to the Mediterranean. We had bought the boat in the Helford River. Some friends had invited us to share a hire car for a sightseeing trip inland so we left our dinghy on the seawall after rowing in it ashore. We left it upturned with the eight inch letters of the boats name very clearly visible, SAGITTAIRE. On our return later that day we found a scribbled note under the dinghy from a holiday maker asking if we were the SAGITTAIRE that she had spent so much of her childhood on. As she said her name and that she also came from near HELFORD we guessed we were. She asked her to meet her ashore the next day if we were the same boat which we of course were delighted to do. We brought her back on board and she was tearful when she saw the old vessel again and we spent a happy time together that day. She was renting a villa Near Porto Colom and had just come down to the port for a visit.

My grandfather's footsteps

My maternal grandfather Arthur said he had experienced a lot of strange coincidences in his life. Later, several coincidences happened in my life, relating to him. My mother and her parents were from Gloucestershire, and the beauty and history of Gloucester Cathedral was one of Arthur’s most inspirational topics of conversation. I myself had never lived anywhere near Gloucester. I grew up in Devon, studied in Cambridge, then lived in Buckinghamshire for 16 years. One day my husband, who was a railway manager, decided out of the blue that he wanted to run a cathedral instead. He would have considered any cathedral in England and Wales, but he was appointed Chapter Steward at Gloucester Cathedral. (Coincidence 1.) We were strangers in Gloucester. I decided I must get a job. I went to an employment agency and the first job I saw was for a Technical Author – a suitable opportunity. On enquiring, I found that the post was at an engineering firm in Dursley (17 miles away from Gloucester). This turned out to be the same firm where my grandparents had met as employees in 1927.

Mr D H

3 family birthdays on the same date, Granddaughter and Great-grandchildren boy and girl twins.

BIRTH AND DEATH PALINDROME

MY ELDEST BROTHER WAS BORN ON 13.6.31 AND DIED ON 28.8.82.

Shared Anniversary

My girlfriend of 5 years, now unfortunately ex-girlfriend and I were shopping for anniversary presents a few years back for our respective parents. We realised that they were married on the same day of the same month. Later when we got home and spoke to them, we realised that not only was it the same day and same month, the the same year also! This was despite their age gap of around ten years and being from opposite ends of the country - made remembering the date easier anyway

One in 250 million.

My partner and I threw a party to which we invited an American woman called Liz W. She worked in London selling advertising space for The Guardian newspaper. Around that time I was working in a BBC studio with Keith B and Karen K, an American flute and piano duo, who were recording a programme for Radio Three. We became friendly and so I invited them to the party as well. Jokingly I introduced the two women to each other with the words "you're both American, so you probably know each other." Liz W to Karen K: "Karen K? Karen K? That sounds familiar. Where in the States are you from?" Karen K: "Oklahoma City" Liz: "That's where I grew up. What school were you at? Karen: "The (so-and-so) High School." Liz: " That was my school too. I remember you. You were one grade ahead of me."

richard buxton

I was involved in a minor traffic prang outside the lycee in cromwell road west london.It was friday rush hour I needed a witness as I was keen to show it was all the other parties' fault A motorcyclist stopped and came over to offer himself as a witness his business card said Richard Buxton .he was also a good witness as he was a barrister.A traffic cop turned up and thought it fishy we both claimed to have the same name.At the time(I checked) there were 3 richard buxtons in the london phone book 1983.

birthdays

All my children share my birthday. I was born 11 Aug 1970. Jason was born 11 Aug 2003 (2 days late) and my twins Daniel and Dean were born on 11 Aug 2006 (on their due date)

Sad Coincidence

I was very pleased that I had arranged at very short notice a bedroom for my mother in a very good nursing home. I was telling the estate agent who was arranging my new rental property. I knew she had been recently bereaved, but to our mutually-dawning horror it became clear that the reason my mother had a bedroom at short notice was that her father had died two days before we spoke and had vacated the room.

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