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!

foreshadowing of near-death experience

in 2016 I started to see my birthday, 12/08 everywhere. I'd see it in the time, in other ways too. I remember one time I walked into target with my boyfriend and the time on all the clocks they were selling read 12:08. I always just kind of brushed it off or made jokes about it, but something about it made me feel uneasy. In July of 2016 my bf and I were on our way to a festival in PA. On our way to cracker barrell I saw 12:08 on the clock and made a joke "this is getting out of hand, it probably means I'm gonna die soon." we got out of cracker barrell and maybe 30 min into our drive on the highway my tire blew out and I flipped my car into a ditch. My car was completely totaled but miraculously we lived and made it out with barely any injuries.

CRUISE CONNECTION

For the 2017/2018 New Years, I decided to book a 4 day cruise on Carnival Inspiration leaving out of Long Beach, CA. Had a wonderful time and then returned to my home in the Las Vegas area (Henderson, NV) afterwards. About 250 miles away from Long Beach. On 1/6/18, I decided to play table games at the M Resort in Henderson and was playing a Texas Holdem table game. This is against the house and known as a "carnival" game. The dealer was killing us and all the other players had walked off. I was leaving and mentioned the cruise to the dealer who was interested in what that was like. I showed him pictures of the cruise party. At that moment, the pit boss, a nice British lady, walked by and noticed the pictures. She inquired what we were looking at. I explained and then she surprised me by saying that she had worked previously on that exact same cruise ship. What are the odds? Out of the blue, the dealer then said that I should try my luck at the next table playing a variation of black jack where you can play a side bet and receive tokens that translates into various payouts depending on how many tokens you accumulate in a hand.

Registration coincidence

a few years ago our car was sat in traffic the car in front was a ford fiesta, the same model fiesta as ours. it had the same 3 registration letters and year letter, the 3 digit number was 1 number lower than ours.

The Milton Train Crash in 1955

My grandfather was a GP in a village a few miles away at the time & also did all his own dispensing & had to order drugs himself. He had a patient with terminal cancer & ordered ten ampoules of morphine. When the drugs arrived at his surgery there were one hundred ampoules of morphine & he was furious because it was it was a dangerous (and expensive) error. That afternoon he was summoned to a terrible train crash where many died & over 150 people were injured. Many were trapped in the wreckage. He used every single ampoule of morphine that afternoon. He'd been an avowed atheist until that day but veered towards the agnostic thereafter.

Last Pay Check

After the thanksgiving weekend of 2016, my entire team at company A was informed that one of two products we were working on would be shelved. I saw this as a bad sign and an inevitable RIF. I decided to change my job. I started working for Company B in Feb 2017. My former coworkers however continued with the previous employer because one out of the two products was still in production. My stinct at company B was going great,albeit the environment was toxic. On 1st of Sept 2017, my former coworkers contacted me telling me that they were laid off and Oct 31st was their final pay check from company A. I, however, went on to climb mt.kilimanjaro in sept of 2017 while vacationing from company B. Upon my return, I noticed a sudden change in the atmosphere. Company B was no longer doing well and I was harassed into quitting on oct 3rd with my last paycheck beig oct 31st(same day as it would have been had I continued at company A). Despite me trying to avoid being laid off, I lost my job on oct 31st.. Feels like this was a part of the simulation I couldn’t avoid.

Birthday Coincidence

We lived in Tooting London. The daughter of the family next door had the same birthday as our daughter. We moved to Beverley East Yorkshire. A new family moved in next door and the daughter had the same birthday as our daughter.

London is a big city

Some years ago my young niece visited England and I spent four days showing her the tourist sights in London. On the third day we were waiting for the underground at Oxford Circus station and she asked whether I knew anyone in London, and whether I would be surprised if we bumped into someone I knew. As I was answering, a train pulled into the station, the doors open, and the first man to step out was an old friend from Cambridge, who introduced himself with a "Hi Colin - how are you?". Neither the conversation nor the meeting are very unexpected, but the timing and the staging were exquisite!

Meeting a Stranger

Six months ago, a man and his daughters came into church and sat next to me. Our congregation is a large crowd, like 2000 people or so. I recall thinking he was handsome. Now months later, I joined a dating site and began chatting with another member and asked where he goes to church. We attend the same church, same service (our church has 3 per Sunday). I took another look at his pics and suddenly realize it's the same man I'd sat next to that day.

Friends overseas

I'll try to keep this as brief as I can.... All my family are British but I was born in New York after my parents emigrated there for fourteen years. We came back to the UK when I was 2 to 3 years old. For my 21st birthday my parents bought me a return ticket for two weeks to New York (my Dad worked for a travel agency in NY, hence the emigration and the connection) but the rest was left to me.... I just got the plane ticket and had to sort the rest out myself. I spoke my friend Sarah to who is considered a "blood sister" of mine as our mothers were next to each other in the maternity ward and we were born in the same hospital at pretty much the same time, which is why both our parents knew each other and became friends. She ran a girl's sorority in New Jersey and said she could help me out with accommodation there. To cut a long story short I had a great time....

Groundhog shack

Last night I was trying to recall the name of the rodent that had featured in the golfing film starring Bill Murray. This had been precipitated by my other moving like the rodent did when dancing to the Kenny Loggin's opening theme. Not being able to recall the film's name I had to Google to find 'Caddyshack' and determine that the rodent was in fact a Gopher. Just as I found this out,Jeremy Paxman in University Challenge asked a question on tv about a weatherman called Phil doomed to repeat the same day over and over. This of course was 'Groundhog Day' starring none other than the same Bill Murray with another form of rodent (beaver)!

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