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!

Bridget Thornhill

Just marking my class's writing from yesterday, listening to Radio 4. I read the sentence "It took a long time to reach their destination" in a piece of writing just as the voice on the radio said the word "destination"!.

Two Catherines

I was a college in the 60s and met a new friend called Pete. I also met my future wife, Val. We were married in 1970 and my best man, Richard, was an old school friend who had no connnection with our college. Although Pete was at the wedding if Pete and Richard met it would only have been in passing. By the late 70s both Richard and Pete were married, and both subsequently had daughters, in the same school year. Both were called Catherine. One lived in Bristol, one in Poole. 18 years late both Catherines applied to study opthalmics at university. They met at one university whilst awaiting interview, and remembered each othe because they had the same name. Some weeks later they met again, awaiting interview at a different university. (This is probably not a coincidence since I imagine interviews are scheduled on the same day). On starting university, they discovered that they had both chosen the second college, and they became firm friends, to such an extent that they decided to share digs during the second year and visited each other's houses during the vacations.

Name and birthday coincidence

My name, Raffaella, was given to me because the day I was born the boat "Raffaello" sailed for the first time. A few years ago, I met another Raffaella... born the same year in the same day. Her father was the Raffaello's chief engineer.

Bookbinding

As a child in the 1950s, we had an old book dated 1895 that we used to play with. Because we were quite rough with it, from time to time it would fall apart and have to be mended with sellotape. I remember noticing that the hardback binding was made up with what would have been scrap paper, including part of a map. In the 1970s I married and moved away. My husband came from a completely different area to me. In the 1980s I was given the book by my mother who was fed up with it falling apart. I looked again at the map in the book's spine and recognised it as the 1848 Ordnance Survey map of my husband's home area, Matthews Lane in Longsight, Manchester.

(Dartford meets Darlington) squared, via the Alps

Having moved from Belgium to France, we made friends with a couple who had recently moved from Yorkshire. Over the years we discovered that the husband of this couple had been a pupil at Dartford Grammar School at the same time although not in the same year as my brother. Our friend's wife had been a pupil at Darlington Girls' Grammar School at the same time as my sister-in-law although, again, not in the same year. The two couples have never met through professional, family or social contacts. The coincidence only came to light through conversations with ourselves.

Happily married

Not sure if I have already put this on. So, if not, here it goes. I have two children; a daughter named Joanna, and a son named Andrew. In the fullness of time, they grew up and married. Firstly it was Joanna. She married and Andrew. Then it was the turn of my Andrew. He married a Joanna. Ann.

train coincidence

My sister was getting married and I had to catch a train north. It was many years ago in the days when you could catch any train, anyway I got to the station to find a train was leaving soon so I ran and just got into the nearest carriage. There was only one seat empty so I sat down. There was a gentleman sitting next to me and true to the English way no one spoke a word until we got one station away from my destination then the train stopped for no reason. Gradually conversations started up and I came to realise that the gentleman next to me was American. He told me he was from San Fransico I said that I had a relative married to an American and they lived in San Fransico. It turned out that he knew them very well - he was visiting his mother but when he got back home he would go and see them. Meanwhile I was able to tell the rest of the family at the wedding and also got in touch with my relative who was thrilled to hear about my coincidence on a random train ride home.

birthday coincidence

My husband and I bought our boat in 1987, which was called "Solstice" (21st June) He discovered that the distance in time from his birthday to the Solstice day was the same as the distance in time to mine. 30/3 for him, 12/09 for me!! Not only that. As we sailed it from Dartmouth to Guernsey the day after purchase I noticed the sail number was 2905 - it was the 29th May that day!!

holiday meetings

On holiday in Yorkshire we decided to travel on the Settle to Carlisle railway. There was only one other couple on the platform so we passed the time of day with them, noting that they were southerners too. Next day on a country walk we met the same people and the man said that he recognised me as being from the library in our home town and that he worked in the council offices next door to it. We are from Kent and they had never been to Yorkshire before. On holiday in Malta we met another couple who had arrived on the same day. They were our age and exchanging details we found that we lived three miles apart, had married on the same day, both the husbands had been in the RAF and we both had 2 children born in the same years.....for both couples it was our first visit to the island; we are still friends.

Cranes - a series of coincidences

In May 2009 I saw my daughter just after she had returned from her honeymoon. We talked about a lot of things but she briefly mentioned that a friend, Neil, and his wife had just had a baby girl. Neil was often at our house when the children were growing up but he now lived in Scotland and I had not seen him for about six years. My daughter, Wendy said she was going to buy the baby a mobile for above his cot. Two days later, I left for a city break in Copenhagen and filled three days with visits to Elsinore, Roskilde and the city. On the final day, I had an hour to kill before leaving and, on a whim, went to the Danish Design Museum shop in the centre. The shop had a whole wall devoted to mobiles of every imaginable type and subject - did the Danes invent the mobile? - and I decided to buy one for Wendy to send to the baby. I chose one of cranes - the bird - because a Chinese friend of mine once told me that they were a sign of long life. When I got home, I told my daughter but she said that, unable to find a mobile herself, she had sent something else. "Why don't you send it to Neil?" she said and gave me his address. I duly sent it.

Pages