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!

Unlikely meeting

Aged 17, I set off to hitch-hike to the South of France from Manchester with a friend, to the consternation and anxiety of my mother. My parents were due to set out a week later with the rest of the family by car, and were due to meet me by the Med. I had made it as far as an obscure mid-France town called Tain l'Hermitage after being dropped there by a ride. My parents, having had no contact with me since my departure, had to pull off the Autoroute due to an unexpected need for fuel. They pulled off and made their way, quite by chance, to Tain l'Hermitage: I was walking down the street eating peaches, relishing my new found freedom, when who should pull up beside me but my Mum and Dad: my Dad demanded a peach, my mother ensured I was changing my underwear regularly, and then we parted.... Spooky!

name chance

In hospital after the birth of my first baby, I met a woman whose married name was the same as my maiden name and whose maiden name was the same as my married name.

Shared boyfriend

At University I became friends with another girl. It transpired that we had both been travelling in our gap years and that both trips had included Malaysia, amongst other countries. Where? The Perhentian Islands. Which One? Small Island. Which beach? Long Beach. Where did you stay? Moonlight Chalets. When were you there? June. When in June? Turns out I had arrived three days after her and stayed in the same place. Not only that but I had snogged the guy she had been going out with!

Mrs Christine Smedley

My husband was born in Kent and lived in a house near Moat Park. His family used to go there on occasion and there was a painting.of exotic birds on the wall, which he found he he very much liked to look as a child. In his thirties, we moved to Bath and went to a house there, where this painting appeared again, which he thought pretty extraordinary. When my husband was in his sixties, we moved to Guernsey - and, in a local auction room, this same painting turned up fo sale, with it's Kent and Bath provenance. He bought the painting and it lived with it for the rest of his life.

Cross parent in law birthdays

My wife's birthday is on the same date as my father's birthday. My birthday is on the same date as my mother-in-law's birthday.

2012

first netball match of 2012, out team won 20-12!!!!.......... then so did the other team!

Telephone call

My 15 year old son was walking past a telephone box on his way to the local sports centre. The box is half a mile away from our home. The phone rang and being a curious teenager he answered it saying 'hello'. The person on the other end said 'hi Jason (my sons name), is Gina there?' It was a friend of mine. My confused son said 'no not here' and put the phone down. Totally stunned as if in a dream, he hotfooted it home and recounted the incredulous incident! What a coincidence!!

Work coincidences

A few years ago a new neighbour moved into the flat next door to me, the sister of the previous owner and I had only met her a couple of times in passing on the stairs. We have now become firm friends and have shared information about ourselves. We were surprised to discover that we have both worked for the same solicitor, Westwood Morris & Co, Waterloo Street, Birmingham, but several years apart, and were able to share information and annecdotes about those who worked for that company. Not a major coincidence but we thought it was very interesting, and strangely it build an even stronger bond between us.

Ticket birth date

For my father's 70th birthday my brother-in-law bought three tickets to watch England play cricket at Lords, three generations, my father, himself and his son were to go together. At random he put one ticket inside his birthday card. My farter noticed his tictet was 1517, he was born on 1st May 1917, his birth date was 1.5.17.

Radio coincidence

I listen to Radio 4 (speech radio) all day most of the time. The number of times that I hear the same word as I’m typing (or saying or reading) is so astonishing that I started to note them until the list got too long and time consuming to keep up. These words aren’t common conjunctions or anything, they are often not the sort of word you’d expect to come across in an average day let alone at the same moment, sometimes several times a day. It bothers me a lot. Of course there is the possibility that in all this background language @ whatever words per minute versus the words I’m dealing with in my own life you’d expect some coincidence, but I still find it hard to accept as not noteworthy.

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