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!

Saving a stamp on a christmas card

I was travelling in Vietnam with a few days left on my visa in December 2013. I bought a ticket to get me through to Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, via a short tour of the Mekong basin. I received an email from an old friend who I hadn't been in contact with very much for many years, asking me for my latest address, "otherwise you wont get a xmas card ...". It turned out he and his partner were about to fly out to Phnom Penh for a winter break. I told him to save the postage and bring my card with him. We arrived there within a few hours of each other and spent the evening with a few beers in the FCC catching up. I never did get my xmas card though.

The Extra I Ching Coin ?

Many years ago I went to Denmark to work as an engineer. I soon met a Danish girl, and we moved into a flat together. She was a student of Chinese at the university in Copenhagen. The flat was almost derelict and needed much repair; its previous (and then deceased) occupant had no connection with the university. In seeing her collection of books I learnt of the I Ching. This involves tossing three Chinese coins for a series of heads and/or tails for purposes of divination. One then consults a book with one's obtained series. Whilst not claiming to predict the future, claim is made that the series has some relationship with it. I went and bought three such coins (old bronze with a square hole in the middle) from a coin dealer in the city and began my experimental tossing. To our amazement a day or two later in our repairs under a skirting board my Danish friend found a fourth such coin of almost exactly the same type! I was initially skeptical of this find suspecting that she might have planted it but I soon became 100% convinced, and for many years ever since, this was a genuine coincidence.

Cornish Love Match

Miraculously, we found each other late in life… we had raised our families, had our careers. I did not even know he existed, (though he did know of me) but on the Venn diagram of our lives, we had been treading adjacent paths and circling each other through all my growing up years. But the big miracle – call it karma – had us both, 400 miles apart, independently turning on our computers on the same day, at the same time, and using the same dating site – one that enabled us, finally, to meet. He spotted me 'watching' his dating profile... read MY profile, realised he knew who I was - and got in touch. He had been living in North Wales for around 30 years. And once we’d met, to chat and discover each other and laugh at the sheer wonder of it all for months… ​ When at last we met face to face, I thought he looked plump, dour and glum. But our shared memories of Cornish childhoods, of common experiences, of familiar characters and much-loved sayings, soon broke through our fragile surface shells and found us loving and longing for the same things. We laughed – often – at the same things.

same room at university

I studied for my undergraduate degree at Manchester University 1990-93. There were about 10,000 students at Manchester Uni when I was there. A similar number at the Poly and a similar number at UMIST , more at the business school etc. I lived in student accommodation in my first year, a place called Oak House. Many years later I was working in the city. We had summer interns every year and one year an intern said he also went to Manchester Uni. I asked him where he lived, he named the area, thats where I lived, I asked him where in that area, he named the same halls of residence i was in, Oak House. I asked which block, he was in my block. I asked him which flat, he was in my flat. Finally we got down to the room. He had lived in the same room as me. I was very careful not to prompt him and never revealed any information about where I had lived. Nor did anyone else at work know where I had lived so i doubt he had any way to know this in advance. It was a strange coincidence. I would love to know the odds of it happening.

Why am I Simon

In 1962 my father won a KelIog scholarship to study at Michigan State University and I spent a year at junior school next to the campus village. In 1975 I was studying at Liverpool Uni and travelled to Hebburn for a job interview. To save money I decided to hitch back to Liverpool. I caught a bus out to the Scotswood Road and stuck out my thumb. I was picked up by a guy about my age driving a much too good car. He wouldn't take me very far but it was a start and so I got in & began to casually chat. After some rambling I learned he was just back from a gap year working on a farm in Canada. It was a owned by someone his Dad knew & had met at MSU after gaining a Kellogg scholarship in 1963. My driver was the same age as me, had lived in the same apartment block, gone (as a blond blue-eyed English kid) to the same school, in the same class. He'd always wondered why everyone insisted on calling him Simon when he first started. I was in his car for about 25 minutes. We never lived within 200 miles of each other.

Mr Mark Greig

I I live in Doncaster, I purchased a 1958 VW Beetle, I only purchased it to remove the super rare number plate VLF9. I sold the number plate and then resold the Car. 3 year later I had a VW Golf for sale on eBay, a chap from Nr London called my number and asked about the golf, he asked if he could leave a deposit on the car until he sold his 1962 Vw Beetle , I said that would not be a problem. I then told him that 3 years ago I owned a 1958 Beetle but I only purchased it because I knew the number plate had a value. The chap asked me what the plate was so I told him VLF9, It turned out to be his first ever car he had photos of him next to the car 40 year earlier. When he collected the golf from me I gave him the old number plate I removed from the car, I saved those because they just looked so cool and retro. What were the chance I told a random fella over the phone that I owned that car. And then the chances that fella owned that very same car. This 100% happened

Birthdays

As a teacher, a few years ago, I was looking through a supplies company catalogue. On one page they had classroom calendars/date displays and the only ones on the page were mine and my wife's birthday (date and month!)

life saver?

One day I was about to go to collect my wife from work. We used to have a landline phone near the door. As I opened the door to leave the phone rang. I answered it and found it to be a friend. I told them I was just going to collect my wife and would call them back when I got home. I left the house within around 10-15 seconds after I would have left had the phone not rung. As I turned into a road on my journey it was possible to see quite a distance as it was a long road. In the distance I saw a collision with two cars. I checked that all was ok with the people and asked if they wanted me to contact the services (early days for mobile phones) but one of them did have a mobile so I went on my way. I pondered what had happened that day and went back to repeat the journey as near as I could once I turned that same corner. It took about the same time to teach the same point as I had been delayed. About 10 seconds.

Mother dies in house fire. Two weeks later daughter dies in house fire in the same house.

Mum and daughter die in house fires, only days apart Jim Cusack PUBLISHED 08/05/2011 | 05:00SHARE Tragedy struck a Drogheda family for the second time in less than a fortnight yesterday after the daughter of a woman killed in a house fire died in a second fire in the same house. SHARE A second daughter who had also returned for her mother's funeral, which was due to have taken place today, was also in the house and is seriously ill in Drogheda General Hospital. The dead daughter was named as Susan Krings, 34, whose mother Alicia Krings had been found dead in the front room of the house in Termon Abbey last Tuesday. It is believed Alicia Krings had died some days before her body was found. She had last been seen by neighbours a week before her body was discovered.

Falling light

I was sitting with family discussing my grand-daughters facility with both German and English when I made the point that she knew the word for 'light' (as in a light installed in a room). As I said this I pointed to the light fitting in the room which fell from the ceiling as I pointed at it! This was not something that this light fitting had ever done before, though to be perfectly fair it was not very solidly installed. everybody else in the room was sitting some distance from the light and there were no obvious vibrations or air circulations. PS David, I have done some work in Bayesian networks and am a great admirer of your work.

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