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!

Birthday coincidence

My mother-in-law has two children who share the same birth date but four years apart (20th November) and a neice, a granddaughter and three great-grandchildren who share the same birth date (22nd February). In fact, two of the great-grandchildren are siblings born two years apart and the other great-grandchild was actually born on the exact same day as one of the siblings!

Lost Earrings

I lost my earring. 5 hours later when I was walking home from meeting a friend, a woman on the street who was walking in front of me picked up the earring and was about to toss it back down when I stopped her. Happily reunited with my earring!!

One Friday

My daughter is in the process of buying a house. One random Friday afternoon before Christmas I took my wife out for lunches after being delayed for an hour due to clearing a blocked drain. When we the corner from where we walked past the front door to observe the house.finished our meal I suggested we drive to the house my daughter is buying to park up and look from the outside. Reluctantly because it was getting I drove the car and parked just around

Same farm

I am a UK veterinary student, and before starting me degree I worked two small sheep farms (less than 500 sheep) in two different states of Germany. When in Finland last year I met 2 german veterinary students. One had also worked on the same farm I had; the other lived less than 20 miles away from the other farm! Out of all the farms in Germany, and all the german veterinary students I could have met; it seemed like such a coincidence.

Florida holiday coincidence

We took a family holiday in Orlando in the summer of 2006 and while trudging around Sea World theme park we were startled by our Son's primary school teacher who'd spotted our son in the crowd because of his Leeds United football shirt. We'd no idea she was due to be on holiday in Florida, and we all laughed at the coincidence of meeting up, and what were the odds, etc. We returned to Orlando two years later, in 2008, and amazingly, this time while we were spending the day in the Epcot theme park, the very same teacher came running out of an open area cafe, again having seen Tom with his Leeds shirt on (a different one, I should add!). We were absolutely blown away. Clearly we were two groups of people who shared a common holiday interest, but the chances of our two paths meeting up in such circumstances, twice, neither knowing the other was even on holiday, must be incredibly small.

3 is the Magic Number

I have 3 children, all girls, all born on same day- 20th January! They will celebrate their birthdays next week- they will be 1 year, 7 years & 8 years!

Second Christmas

I have three siblings; a twin brother born on 9th April 1965, a sister born on 9th April 1963 and a brother born on 11th April 1961. When we were children our older brother celebrated his birthday on 9th April and it was like a second Christmas. We thought it was really strange if people didn't have the same birthday as their brothers and sisters. We felt sorry for other children and I still do really because it was great. It was only as I became a young adult that I appreciated it was an unusual situation.

A holiday we shall never forget!

This is an incredible but entirely true story of unbelievable coincidence when my wife, Ann-Marie and I were on holiday in Florida back in 1989. Our fly-drive holiday to Florida had started badly when our hire car was broken into on only our third day there. We travelled on down to Key West on the Florida Keys and booked ourselves into a motel there. Whilst at the motel poolside my wife overheard a couple who sounded as if they came from the north-east of England, just like her. We introduced ourselves and spent most of the weekend with Sunderland couple Iris, Jimmy and their young daughter Karen. On the Monday they said their goodbyes as they continued their fly-drive holiday. We spent the next couple of days renewing travellers cheques we'd lost in the break-in etc and then headed north ourselves. We replaced our damaged hire car in Miami then drove up to Fort Lauderdale where we booked ourselves into a motel. We went out at night and chose one of the many beachfront restuarants for dinner. We had barely started eating when who should walk into the restuarant but Iris, Jimmy and Karen! ...and they were staying at the same motel as we we were!

Birthday coincidence

My maternal grandmother, her daughter (my mother) and myself (her daughter) were all born on the 20th December in 1899, 1925 and 1946 respectively.

birth day coincidence

My first wife and my current partner were both born on the same day - July 4th, 1961.

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