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!

Repeating Initials

When I was around 8 years old I discovered my favorite band and quickly started to develop a crush on the main singer whose initials are J.M. To this day, EVERY SINGLE GUY I've come to have a crush on or had a relationship with has had the same initials. It's not like i look for them, but once I'm already into them or dating them I discover their last name or simply realize they to, in fact, have the same initials.

my doctor appears when I need to speak to him

I live in a city of approximately 0.5 million people. I saw a new doctor last week, and now I needed to speak to him (I was going to call him tomorrow morning when he would be at his surgery). But this afternoon I needed to buy some pillowcases, so I travelled across town to ikea. I arrived at the pillowcases, and there was my doctor!

all in a name

I stated posting these previously that my experience most often tends to be the simultaneous occurrence of seeing and hearing random uncommon words. I was sitting on a bench considering whether to reach out to my friend Wanda. Just then I got up and turned to immediately see her name on a personalized license plate. Yesterday I was playing Wordscapes and the moment I traced the word 'sale' on my phone, Chris Sale's (MLB pitcher) name was spoken on the TV, though not because he was pitching in a game which would obviously make the mentioning of his name less coincidental. I realize 'sale' isn't so uncommon of a word, but as a last name, it is. I point out these examples because they typify an experience that happens to me so often that it doesn't stand out in my memory like it once did. This happens with proper names like 'Garfield' and less common words like 'granite' (both real examples).

Same hospital bed, same name

About 10 years ago I was having an operation in a London hospital I arrived during the afternoon and when it got to tea time the staff handing out meals claimed that I had cancelled my meal which I vigorously denied, telling them truthfully that no-one had asked me anything about my meal preferences. The next morning a group of nurses on the next shift congregated round my bed and the lead nurse said, "This is Mrs ....". One of the nurses interrupted and said, "No, she went home yesterday morning." I interrupted and confirmed that I was indeed Mrs ... It transpired that the previous patient had had the same name as me (and had indeed cancelled her evening meal). My surname in particular is reasonably unusual and I have never met face to face anyone outside of my immediately family with the same surname.

timing

During a commercial of Sportscenter, I reach over to my phone to start playing Wordscapes Uncrossed where you trace letters in a circle to identify the words those letters might form. These five letters made the word "blimp" and just as I traced them to form the word, the word "blimp" was spoken on the TV synchronized exactly to my tracing. This one simple example may seem easily explainable as coincidence (though not in my opinion), but this exact synchronous timing with seeing and hearing words simultaneously happens to me often, just as in my other example with "Garfield's". Another time I can remember when the latest Chili Peppers album came out I was giving it a first listen on the way to my cousin's house. Passing through the small town of Congress, AZ, there's a small fire station with a small, one-line scrolling led sign. As my vision landed on the sign, the words "Welcome to" blinked on the sign just as Anthony Keidis yelled those same two words at the beginning of a lyric.

The same ship name

My Uncle Jim, with whom I share my name, was torpedoed and sunk twice whilst serving in the Merchant navy in WWII. He never talked about this but my father mentioned it briefly once and I knew nothing of the circumstances. Recently I was researching our family history and after help from the National Archives I at last discovered the ships he served on. The second sinking was of the ms ADDA, an Elder Dempster passenger liner which in the early hours of the morning of 8 June 1941 had been the lead vessel of a convoy which had been dispersed en route to Liverpool from Africa. It was hit aft by a torpedo from U-107 and sank slowly 82 miles west-south-west of Freetown. The commodore of the convoy and seven crew members and two passengers were lost. On 77 years later we visited Milan and on 7 June 2018 took a train to Lake Como and a ferry to Bellagio. The ferry was called ADDA. It turns out that the Adda is a river which empties into Lake Como but why a Liverpool ship had that name is unclear.

Professor Nicholas Pickwoad

I worked for many years as a conservator of rare books and manuscripts, and one afternoon in the October 1985 was working on a manuscript volume of harpsichord sonatas by the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti, one of about 20 volumes of many different sorts of music sent to my workshop for conservation by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. As usual, my radio was tuned to Radio 3, and I realised after a few minutes that the music I was listening to was not only by Scarlatti, but actually the same sonata that I was working on within the volume at that moment.

Twins?

I met X on a dating site a few years ago. Too many stories to go into about coincidences so I shall list them: Both born 090168, different sides of the county, but within 3 hrs Both had pets called 'cheeky', my hamster his dog Both have 2 brothers, one called Scott and Iain (albeit one is as a middle name) Both drive white cars Both have the favourite song Labbi Siffre 'Something inside so strong' Both 1/4 Irish and we both have Irish surnames Both our daughters have the same illness His son goes to the same college as my daughter and I go to the same university as his daughter Both put our new PJ's on on the same night from our daughters (different houses at the time!) Both our children sat their driving theory in the same month We come to laugh and now just accept these similarities when we see each other. I called him one day to ask how his shoulder was, but said back instead. He asked how I knew he had hurt his back the night before.

Love Beyond Borders

I had a spiritual awakening since years ago and it led me to a man I held particular bond with that was unique. Some years later a met a man who was identical in bond but eventually drove me to my current partner. I started seeing sjgns and strange things happened everytime i went away. The last attempt i made i totaled my car after hitting a tree. I gave up trying to leave. He did also because he experienced similar things. The night after i hit a tree my cousins husband(close friend) hit a tree and was killed. My cousin came to stay and ended up sitting on our bed while he was asleep(we were leaving). My boyfriend was shocked to find the identical inage of the woman he had lost in 2014 and both had similar stories. They were the deviant, the antagonizer of drug use that ultimately led to their partners untimely death. I began to see similarities between my boyfriend and my first love, STRONG similarities. My first love was my deviant, my antagonizer.. i was close to death before we split. When my first love and i split was the same thing my boyfriend met his fiance. One love died another began.

Garfield's

I was in a car with new friends heading south on Lake Ave in Pasadena. I had never been to this area of Pasadena before. The conversation led to me telling a story of travelling in London many years earlier. I was telling of how I'd gotten sick from eating at a restaurant called Garfield's. At the exact moment I said "Garfield's", my eyes landed on a sign we were passing "Garfield's Tax Service". This type of coincidence has happened to me so many times over the years that I rarely remember them. What I mean by "this type" is hearing and seeing a word at the same time. Sometimes what I hear is spoken by me, as in the above example, but usually by someone else or the radio. This does not happen with common use words as would simply be noticed by an observant person, but typically proper nouns or names as I described above. I realize you can't quantify the truth of my subjectivity regarding that, but the fact that it's never regular words is what makes it notable.

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