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!

Death of our beloved family dog and a phone call

Our family dog, an English Springer Spaniel named 'Chico' had died sometime during the night before I was to move my parents to a new house. The morning of the move I discovered Chico dead. Dreading telling my parents I went to the house and waited for my father to finish a phone call. After he hung-up I told him the news. Looking surprised he told me that he had just received a wrong-number call from, you got it, Chico California.

State line

I was listening to the song "Eyes Without a Face" by Billy Idol in my car while on a trip. The song has the line "hanging out by the state line turning holy water into whine" and I crossed a state line (Ohio-Michigan) precisely as the words "state line" played in the song.

Balloon links peope with same name

The Helium Balloon With a Magical Ending The two have, understandably, become lifelong friends since. (And if you want to know more about their lives since their chance meeting, the Radiolab interview is a great listen.) While there’s no deeper meaning here, the story of the Buxton girls is a reminder that just because something is highly improbable doesn’t mean it’s impossible — hardly. The odds of something like this happening, according to statistician Chris Chatfield of Bath University (via the Guardian) is small — “a million to one – if not more.” But even at a billion to one, with seven billion people in the world, coincidences of this magnitude are bound to happen every so often. (And you should probably listen when your grandfather wants to do an impromptu science experiment.) http://nowiknow.com/the-helium-balloon-with-a-magical-ending/

Words Matching Up

My profession is a writer, which I've done for the past 20 years. I don't recall when I first noticed the phenomenon of words matching up between what I'm doing and what's going on around me, but it's been happening for years. It happens so often that I started documenting it. The following is a list of the occasions when words have matched up just over the past three weeks. Nov 12, 2018 I'm listing to a Spotify station and a song sang the lyric "hotel while I'm typing out the words "2 nights at hotel" on an invoice to one of my clients. Nov 12, 2018 I read the word "connected" while someone on TV said it.

My whole family

My great grandparents, grandmother, and my great grandfathers son all died in May!!

TV commercial for Simple Soap

In 1986, my then colleague and I worked together as a creative team at an advertising agency in London. On one particular occasion, we were briefed to come up with a 30 second TV script for Simple Soap - a range of soap, moisurisers and cleansers that contained no perfume or colouring. We were briefed on Friday and at the weekend we both worked on the brief independently. He in Brighton and myself in London. On Monday morning I shared my idea, which I was pretty pleased with. It involved a white lily being sprayed with paint and perfume by robotic arms. My partner couldn't believe it as he had drawn up the identical idea and placed it on the desk in front of me. Needless to say, we were both utterly gobsmacked. The commercial was duly produced and was incredibly successful. Simple was snapped up within the year by Smith & Nephew and the founders of Simple retired early.

Snap

I was on holidays in Prague walking down Gold Street. It was very crowded and as I took a photograph a man walked in front of my camera. On returning home to London I was telling my neighbour about my holiday. She asked to see my photos. When we came to the one with the man who had walked in front of my camera she said, "How come my best friend is in your photograph?" I did not know her friend and had never seen him before!

A Rose by any other name

My mother was asked to see a consultant for some extra tests at Southampton General Hospital. This was arranged for out of clinic hours, i.e. early evening. We have an unusual surname; in fact there is no other family that we know of worldwide with this name spelt in this particular way. When my mother met the consultant he said he was surprised as a new member of staff from Germany ad the same surname but spelt slightly differently. He gave his first name. Later that evening my father collected my mother from the hospital and as they entered our house the telephone rang. My mother answered the phone. It was someone asking for a person with our surname, but not us. He was trying to find the phone number for the man from Germany who worked at the hospital. My mother said, "No he doesn't live here, but I can tell you where you can find him at his place of work." !!!!

THE PHONE BOOTH

Colleague Joe F. explained coincidences: lots of things happen. I agree, but coincidences fascinate. Joe himself was driving in suburban Chicago on the way to visit an old acquaintance, when he realized that he had lost the address and telephone number. Eventually he spotted a phone booth, and stopped to see if it had a telephone directory. There was no directory, but he was astounded to find a note addressed to him with the needed number! It devolved that the friend had tried to call Joe's hotel, to confirm the visit, and thought he was speaking to a hotel clerk, but had misdialed to that phone booth, and a passer-by had answered the phone and taken the message.

We can't carry on meeting like this

A few years ago we were on holiday in the Lake District and met a family of four. We stopped and chatted. We were living in Bristol at the time and they lived in Carlisle. About a year later we took our kids to Bristol Zoo and bumped into them again. Quite a coincidence. Perhaps a year later we went on a family outing to Legoland near Windsor. You've guessed it ... Three random meets in 3 different parts of the country.

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