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!

Numbers

My father was born on October 1, 1970 My mother was born on November 1, 1970 I was born on August 1, 1990. I was born at 5:57 am, which is the same exact time that my mother was born and weighed 7 pounds 11 and a half ounces, which is exactly how much my father weighed when he was born. Strange.

I Saw You in Cork

In 1995, I was living in London but applying for jobs in Ireland with a view to moving home. I was born and raised in the northeast of the country, right on the border with Northern Ireland but the job I applied for was in Cork, three-and-a-half hours away in the southwest. I was called for interview and spent just part of a day there, as I flew in an out on the same day. I was on Patrick Street for maybe 15 minutes in total. I had kept all of this secret because I wanted to surprise my family. A couple of weeks later I was back home in my parents' house for a weekend when my sister's boyfriend said, 'I saw you in Cork.' I managed to plausibly deny any such occurrence, even though he told me the day and time and it matched precisely when I would've been wending my way down Patrick St. He believed me and said it was amazing because he followed me and even got ahead of me so he could have a good look. I subsequently got the job and was able to reveal that it was, in fact, me that he'd seen. The fact that I'd never been in Cork before and he rarely went there added to the spookiness of the coincidence.

Connections Across Generations

In 1989, I was a young teacher at a high school in Queens, NY, having recently arrived from Ireland where I'd been born and raised. About six months into my time there, I was hailed by one of the boys I taught and he said, 'Mr. O (for that's what they called me), my mom knows your mom.' I thought it unlikely but asked for his mother's maiden name and said I'd check with my mother the next time I was in touch with her. In a subsequent letter to my mother I explained the exchange and in her response, she informed me that, back in the late 1950s, because she had nice handwriting, this boy's mother had asked her to write out her documents and letters of introduction as she prepared to emigrate from rural Ireland to America. Thirty years later I was teaching that woman's son.

Next Door Neighbours

In 1989 I was moving to NYC from rural Ireland to become a high school teacher. Just before I left I bumped into a cousin of mine in the nearby village. We chatted and, knowing I was going to NY, she said, in all seriousness, that maybe I would meet the cousin of her husband that lived in NYC. I sniggered internally at the absurdity of such a thing happening. Fast forward a couple of months and I was settled into life at the school when one of my new colleagues asked, 'Do you know someone called Anna in Ireland?' With the same internal sniggering I'd indulged in on the previous occasion I said, with some understatement, 'Well, that's a fairly common name in Ireland, do you know the surname?' upon which he replied, giving me my cousin's surname. I went all cold inside. It turned out that my new colleague and my cousin's husband's cousin were long-time next door neighbours. Subsequently, I visited with him and was taught never to be dismissive of such occurrences happening.

Right Time and Right Place to Claim my Photo

When I graduated from university in Ireland in 1988, as well as the official photographer, there was a freelancer doing the rounds and offering a good deal so my family decided to get some additional shots with him. We paid him, gave him our details, got his card, and waited for the photos to arrive by post. When, after a considerable amount of time, they did not arrive, I called the number on the card and got no reply. I wrote to him (this was 1988, no email) and got no reply. Having tried unsuccessfully for months to contact him I chalked it up to experience and forgot about it. One day about 18 months later I was wandering through the grounds of Trinity College, Dublin on my way to somewhere when I saw the photographer taking some photos of tourists. I went up to him and confronted him about the money paid and the non-appearance of the photos. 'Hold on,' he said. He reached into his satchel, took out my photos, and handed them to me.

Eminent statisticians, 1924

This coincidence relates to two eminent statisticians (Peter Armitage and David Cox) who were born on the same day - 15th July 1924. Both were educated at Cambridge, both received British honours (CBE and Knighthood) and both were Presidents of the RSS (1982-84 and 1980-1982).

Meeting an unknown half sister

This story starts in a very small town in Spain. 45 years ago my mum lived in this little town and was married to my dad, but had an affair with an old love. A couple of months later she finds out she's pregnant and she doesn't know who the father is. She shares her doubts with her lover but decides to believe that this baby, who would then be me, is her husband's (I didn't know anything about this). This lover of her, who now lived in a different city, 650km away from my mother's, gets married and has two daughters. I never heard of him or them. Never even knew they existed. One of the daughters, the oldest of the two, we'll call her A, decided when she was about 25 to spend a year abroad learning English in NYC. There she lives in a shared apartment with other young girls, one of them being, coincidentally, one of my cousins, who had also decided to spend some time in NYC learning English, we'll call my cousin B. They became very good friends, but none of them knew they were somehow linked. A couple of year later, when they weren't living in NYC anymore, A addresses an email to many people she knew.

3 relatives die on sane day, different years

My brother-inlaw’s mom died in 1971; my dad’s mom died in 1989; my mom died in 2014. They all died on May 25th, just different years.

Unlikely Meeting

When I was a freshman in college, I worked as a tennis instructor during my summer break back in my hometown. I worked with a girl named Tara, who I met once before when we happened to play against each other in high school. We worked as tennis instructors for the summer, then went back to each of our respected universities and never had contact again...until two years later. During my junior year I decided to study abroad in Wollongong, Australia. The very first day I arrived in Australia, some aussies took me and a group of people out to a pub, where we ordered our drinks and sat outside out on a long picnic table. A couple minutes after sitting down, someone said my name and I looked up. It was Tara, sitting across from me at the same picnic table! Turned out, she had transferred from her university to the uni in Sydney, and she was down in Wollongong visiting some friends. What are the odds?

Same name, friends

So I was texting with this person on an app called Wattpad and we had the same name no big deal. But then we talked a little more and turns out they had a best friend with the same name as mine. A little strange. Then I asked about some people I knew, and they described them just how I know them. It started to creep me out. So they told me their husband's name, and that boy goes to my school and I don't like him. Then I asked what sports have they played, and they said soccer. I have played soccer. And then I asked if they knew a person who I knew was moving in seventh grade. And they said they knew a person who was in middle school but left. They said that they still talk a lot. I talk a lot with that friend. All the friends I asked her had the same names and same characteristics, like short, plays the violin. It started to creep me out. So I asked about their last name. They said they were married twice, and the put two last names and their original last name. That original last name was my last name. I was very scared. And I started crying because I thought they stole my life. They had the same first and last name as me and named their baby my middle name.

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