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!

Dr

My husband, plus two very close friends, plus two mothers of close friends of my son all share the same birthday - 18th September. Three other close friends share the same birthday - 13th May, the day before mine! </p> <p>My daughter was on a Gap year in France last year. During the summer holidays, she was one of the youth workers who took a group of young people to a theme park close to where she was based, near Toulouse. Whilst sitting watching them on a ride she heard 'there's Aoife' - it was the family of one of her best friends from school, the friend herself had just left her family to return home earlier the same day.

Old Friend

In the 1970s when I was 12, I was best friends with a girl called Mary. We both came from expatriate American families and were very close. Her family moved back to America and although we kept in touch for awhile, I last saw her when we were 14. After that we lost touch entirely. 14 years later, having trained as an actress, I was appearing on breakfast television to promote a drama series I was in at the time. During one of the ad breaks, a floor assistant handed me a piece of paper which said "please call Mary your old school friend" and gave a London number. The assistant said that she had called the programme to leave the message for me. I was astonished and called her straight away. It turned out she was now living in London and was in post-graduate training as an actress herself (we had never discussed our future careers when we were 12). She had (unusually) switched on the television to get the weather report at the exact moment the camera was on me during the brief interview. It was pure coincidence she saw me and recognised me.

Overijse

In 1982 we moved into a cottage flat and the house opposite was called "Overisje". In 1992 we moved to Brussels and were directed to look for a house in Jesus Eik, which turned out to be in the commune of Overisje.

lottery coincidence

'On 11 September 2002.the fitst anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center, balls in the city's draw spookily came out as 9.11. Yet nearly 6000 players had selected those numbers.' From my book FATE'S BOOKIE: HOW THE LOTTERY SHAPED THE WORLD Gary Hicks

Bus in Moscow

In 1967 I was a student who, through a friend of mine, took part in a trip behind what was then "the Iron Curtain". My friend's wife was a student at Manchester, studying Russian, & wanted to travel to Russia. She had no money & worked out that the cheapest way to do it was to organise a student trip going there and this could be done by us all buying places, which included the purchase of a double-decker bus, which would be our mode of transport. 2 engineering students at Manchester, who were to be the drivers of the bus, were dispatched to buy a bus, which they did from a specialist scrap yard. They chose what was known as a "country bus" as it was a bit lower than normal double-deckers, having a sunken walk-way & long bench seats on the top deck. Our route was plotted by the AA to avoid low bridges [they only got it wrong once - which took a chunk out of the top near-side corner of the bus!] & was made easier by the slightly lower than normal double-decker. We travelled for 6 weeks, visiting Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Hungary & East Germany en route.

John Logie Baird

Two years ago in September we were holidaying in Ontario, Canada, at the house of a friend. We were given the loan of his car to go shopping and had parked the car in a carpark downtown when we were approached by a somewhat unsteady Canadian who was pointing at the numberplate on the front of the car: "B'deck!" he exclaims, "Tha's B'deck!" This meant nothing to us, so we asked him to explain. The plate was BDK, signifying that it was originally plated in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. "Surely you know of Baddeck.....the place where John Logie Baird built his house and transmitted across the Atlantic?" We had not heard of this place and had forgotten about JLB. Perhaps, by the look of his out of town clothes this gentleman was from Nova Scotia and was a bit homesick. Anyway we had a laugh over it and went our separate ways. Later that day I emailed my daughter-in-law back in Scotland, telling her of the encounter. I thought it would be of interest to her because she had spent some time in Nova Scotia.

Same name an age apart

Two years ago close friends of mine bought an old house near Petersfield, found for him by an estate agent. It was to be knocked down and a new one erected in it's place. While clearing several out buildings they came across a pile of old leather boxes and cases covered in leaves. One of the larger heavy cases was monogramed with the name Russell, is was about 100 years old. The name of my friend is also Russell, spookey or what? They have since had the cases professionally renovated and are on display in the new house as a great talking point. Regards Mike H

Call centre coincidence

I worked on a help desk in a very busy financial call centre and was one of about sixty staff that took calls from customers, branches and other call centres about ISA's and Bonds. During 2010's busiest time of year (peak season) we were struggling to answer all of the calls often meaning that queues of frustrated customers 300 deep would be waiting for a very long time to talk to an advisor. At this time I remember talking to a Mr Fletcher. He wanted to discuss both his and his wife's accounts but he knew that due to financial regulations I wouldn't be able to talk to him about his wife's accounts unless she was with him and I could ask her some security questions. After i dealt with Mr Fletchers query he told me that his wife was at work and would call sometime that day. The very next call I took was from Mrs Fletcher! This, given that we were over run with calls and of all the advisors she should come through to me straight after I had been talking to her husband to say the least blew my mind. As soon as I found out her name I told her conveying a large amount of excitement that I had just been talking to her husband.

chance encounter leads to 30 years of marriage

Reading station 1981. I swore at the lateness of the train. She commiserated. We had a drink waiting for the next one. Got into same carriage, still slightly shy. Each took out a book...we were both reading Saul Bellow's novel Henderson the Rain King. Hard to say at this distance whether this was what clinched it. We soon found out that she had lived years before in the same street as my grandmother, so we must often have seen each other as children: a second coincidence. A slighter, third, coincidence is that we both went to boarding schools - separate ones - in the same town.

Credit Card

Whilst in Somerset some years ago I called in for fuel at a local village petrol station. This was in the days when you had to sign when paying by credit card. The previous customer had left his payment slip in the machine and his name was identical to mine.

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