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!

Spousal Connections

Years ago my wife & I started noticing multiple coincidences in our lives. Both of us come from families with five children: three boys and two girls. We both have an older sister born in 1951 with two children named Eric & Jill. Both of our mothers --- born weeks apart --- had one brother and four sisters. We are both into numerology and both our birthdays add up to 11= 2; both our social security numbers add up to 38=11=2. Even weirder, the first three digits of her SSN are 038.

What Is Going On?

The amount of coincidences that has been happening in my life lately has been so unbelievable that I barely even believe it myself, which is why it will be hard to get anyone else to believe it. One of the biggest ones that I think helped me the most was the other day I was feeling very down, like the whole world is against me and didn't know who to turn to. While I was on my lunch break I had to go to the bathroom so I stopped at a supermarket on the way. When I walked into the bathroom there was a stranger in there, he asked how I was doing. I told him I'm hanging in there, he responded by saying, "well don't give up, we need you!". I was speechless, how could he know I felt like giving up? Who was this person? I don't think I will ever know, but it helped change my mood and outlook, but also makes me more paranoid and wondering who might be watching me. Another weird coincidence is I constantly seem to look at the clock when it is either repeated numbers like 2:22, 5:55, etc. or 11:11 or 9:11. What do these mean?

2 Dads/2 Aarons

I had been treated by a physical therapist for a couple of years and started asking her about her background after years of minor chit chatting. We found out that her dad and uncles knew my dad and uncles and that she had even worked at my uncle's business 38 years ago. I then mentioned that my dad's birthday was coming up, July 2nd. She said that her son, Aaron, was born on July 2nd. We both thought that was a bit eerie and a moment of silence fell between us. Then I thought to ask about her dad's birthday. He was born on May 4th, just like my son, Aaron.

Birthday Lovers

I never went to my high school reunion because I thought it was just a launching pad for those that wanted to toot about their accomplishments. I graduated in 1974 and never went to any of them at all. I had to be talked into the what I thought would be the final one in 2014. So reluctantly I went with a friend. I sat in the old school and there was no order or reason for the sitting. I found myself at a table with the friend who convinced me to come. I then found she was interested in talking to everyone except me. So I struck up a converstation with the girl next to me who I thought was someone's wife. Well we started to talk about birthdays and we exchanged birthdays. All of a sudden this stranger was actually a classmate I never knew, she had the exact same birthday, month, day, and year and she sat right next to me. We also found out she had Lasik eye surgery, had the same blood type, our hands were exactly the same size, and we just could what we called were "intuitive" when it came to what we were thinging about, or about to say, or what we meant. We also did things almost on purpose when it was just by chance.

Backlash against big data

While I was listening to the Calling Bullshit in the Era of Big Data lecture series, specifically the one that discusses the Google Flu Trends overestimating the number of cases of flu, I knocked some paper on the floor. It came from a pile of papers that I had found when tidying up and handing over the archive for a volunteer role I had just given up. After the lecture had finished I picked it up. It was called 'How to preprocess a simple paragraph of text'. I have no idea what it is about, or where I got it, but it had nothing to do with my volunteer job and I had never read it before. On the last page there was a sample piece of text to try the technique out on. The text was about big data, and included the same information about Google Flu Trends overestimating the number of cases of flu that I had just heard in the lecture.

Is there a connection when family members die on the same day, but in different months and years?

I honestly did not know this until my mom told me, but her mom passed away on August 30, 1999; then my dad's mom passed away on October 30, 2007; and then my mom's day passed away on September 30, 2010. Is the above just a coincidence or could it be some sort of connection with the day 30? I will say I'm glad it didn't happen in order since that would have been freakier if it happened like August, September, October...I'm curious if it's possible if it could be some kind of anniversary date, or a potential birthdate on a relatives side of my grandma/grandpa that I'm not aware where they passed away before them. But I also believe in reincarnation; so I'm curious about that too. I just wasn't sure if there's any sort of meaning behind it or purely coincidental.

Coincidence of high school

I met my now best friend who is the same height as me (4’10)when we joined eagle point the same week freshmen year. She came from Texas and I came from Medford

Far From Home

16th June 2018, flew to Christchurch, NZ to look for houses as we were moving down from Whangarei NZ in a month. During the day, we went to bigsave furniture to order a bed for when we moved down. Turned out that the sales rep we felt with was also from Whangarei and had just finished working at the bigsave up there. Same day went to order a fridge at Noel Leemings and found that the sales rep there had grown up in Whangarei. 2nd of October, after living in Christchurch for 3 months, took the car to the auto electrician to find that the manager there was also from whangarei and had even lived in the same street as me (Tapper Cres, Tikipunga) but a decade before.

Same person; worlds apart

In the mid '70s, my spouse and I were visiting Greece and took a bus tour that lasted a few days. Everyone on the tour was in pairs, except for one single man. We ended up spending time with him, eating at the same table, walking with him, etc. He was Austrian. We are Canadian and at that time were living in central Canada. The tour ended; we didn't stay in touch. Several years later, my spouse and I, by then living in western Canada, were hiking in the back country near Jasper, Alberta when we rounded a corner and came across three people standing at a fork in the trail, looking at maps. It became apparent two of them were trying to answer the questions of the third. We knew the trails and were able to answer his question. He thanked us and, as we turned to walk away, he said: Have you ever been to Greece? It was the guy from our tour.

Genetic predetermination

Back in February 1996 I gave a talk at the University of Alberta Biochemistry department on the synthesis and characterisation of fluorescent moolecules for the labelling of proteins in muscle. At the end of the talk a man introduced himself to me as being another James Craik who was also a dye chemist. At that point he joked maybe there was a genetic predetermination to Craiks being dye chemists! Now Craik is a rarish surname but I know that a branches of our family have from time to time emigrated to Noerth America from Southern Scotland (where we all seem to hail from) but what would be the chances of same name and same (obscure?) job in the same out of the way place in Canada at the same time? James Craik Former Dye Chemist. (Now a resident of New Zealand)

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