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!

Clutching at straws

I just turned over the TV from 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' where Chris Tarrant was asking about a bag with no handle,giving car-related answers such as accelerator bag,brake bag,clutch bag..to find Ed China on 'Wheeler Dealers' was opening a Lamborghini Uracco clutch mechanism.

Sad Story Santa

Just before my first Christmas with my ex and his parents, I went to the post office to mail gifts to another Province as I do each year. Instead of one of the gals whom I had done business with many, many times, there was an older gentleman who came out from the back room after I hit the bell a couple of times. I get a type of slow motion feeling when I'm about to have a "coincidence" and sure enough, there it was. He was gentle and looked just like Santa Claus and proceeded to ask me if I needed insurance. I said yes as there were many Christmas gifts for family in the box. That's when he commended me for being responsible and told me a terrible story about two drivers who were delivering an eighteen wheeler full of mail one December through a dangerous area of highway in Ontario when the spun out of control and the truck hit a cliff head on. The truck went up in flames and both men were killed. Two days after Christmas, my ex and I were headed back home and I asked what happened to his Dad's youngest Brother. You guessed it... he and a co-worker died while driving a delivery truck for Canada Post one year just before Christmas.

Meet Carla

I recently met a colleague whose name is Carla from the US and had coffee with her yesterday for the first time. Today I started a conversation with a lady in the subway whose name is... Carla and she is also from... the US. Coincidences like this have happened quite a lot among my life which makes me wonder why those events happen.

Birth date coincidence

I helped a stranger in Orly airport carry her bag from the bus to the terminal. On the way she asked me about my star sign. In the exchange that followed we determined that we were born on the same day, month, and year, and this was confirmed by our passports. I find this very surprising because not only did we have the same birthday but we discovered this fact during our short meeting.

Six Flags Visit

On opening day (around April 2017) of Six Flags in Gurnee, IL I was in line with about a thousand people and there was a lady with her son in front of my son, nephew, and me. We talked for awhile until we entered the park and then went Are own ways. Forward 6 months later (October 2017) I take my son, nephew, and myself back to Six Flags in Gurnee, IL for Freight Fest that was planned a couple months ago. Well guess who I see at the park??? Exactly The lady and her son that I talked to in line for an hour on opening day. We got there around the same time and our first ride was the Whizzard. That is where I saw her and the craziest part was that my nephew didn't recognize her and said she could cut in line where then she stood litterly right in front of me. Then we all left at the same time 3:00pm. That was was just to weird for me.

lost two relatives on the same day 200 miles apart

On 28.11.96, my maternal grandmother passed away in the morning. At 7pm that evening, my father passed away, 200 miles away. I then met a man in 2010 who'd lost his mother in the morning and his father in the evening through unrelated events.

Some coincidences take a long time

When I was around 15 or 16, I'd listen to Radio Luxembourg in the late evenings. I didn't care much for the music, but the news reports by an IRN reporter from El Salavador were gripping. A few years later, I met the love of my life, who, incidentally, lived in the house next door to the one I'd been born in and grew up in, although I'd moved away by then. One day, one of us raised how impactful listiening to the IRN El Salavador news reports by one particular news reporter had been, and the other said they too had listened to them and remembered them. Years later, in 1993, an American came to hire our edit suite and we connected. He invited us to become his camera crew and we travelled the world with him. We knew this American had been reporting for radio on the war in El Salavador, but thought no more of it as he was mostly based in the US.

Multiple friend connections across continents

One day a Serbian-Roma musician friend of mine posted a photo on my Facebook timeline. I met him in Serbia but he was living in Australia at that time. A few minutes later, a friend from India who I met in Manchester commented that he had met my Serbian friend on the streets in Sydney the day before! He spotted a musician walking slowly in the pouring rain and was compelled to cross the road and talk to him. Maybe he subconsciously recognised him from my own Facebook page or maybe it's a complete coincidence. What's weird is that I have lots of stories like this - bumping into friends at poignant times or having random connections with people that often cross continents. I sometimes have multiple coincidences with one person and I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something!

Reunited with lost item

In the 1980s I was into spiritual healing and always carried a small pouch of semi-precious stones which meant various things to me. I realised one day I'd lost it and it could have been some distance away, I rode a motorbike and went away for weekends, so I never thought about it further. A couple of years later a new guy started working in the company I worked for. He realised I was into the spiritual stuff and said 'oh, my daughter found a bag of stones, would you like them?' - I said yes. He brought them into work - and it was my bag of stones, intact. I don't carry them any more, I keep them safe at home! They were meant to be returned to me.

Just when I needed a new cable

I keep a USB cable to charge my phone at work. The cable did not seem to be working anymore, however, and I thought to myself one day that I should get a new one. The next day I was walking to the bus stop when I found a cable on the sidewalk!

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