Crossing continents to the same street, same house.

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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.

A young girl leaves her village in Somerset to spend a 6 month working holiday in South Africa. Once there she immediately meets a South African and they are married within 6 months. They set up home together and buy a house. Meanwhile back in the Somerset village the Church Jumble sale collection is underway. The mother of the girl who left the vllage has a box of jumble to donate. There is a knock on the door. On the doorstep is a young women, new to the village, but a stranger to the householder. She has called to collect the jumble, which is handed to her. As the door is closing she hesitantly asks if the daughter of the house is living in South Africa. (Apparently she had been told that the daughter of a house in the village went to South Africa a year before and was now married and settled there). Yes, replies the householder. Where in South Africa, enquires the collector. Durban, is the reply. What part of Durban, is the next question. Durban North, she is told. In what street? She lives in a street called Wimbledon Place. The young womens eyes widen. What number in Wimbledon Place? Number 6, she is told. (there are only 9 houses in Wimbledon Place) With that the collector gasps and says that as a young girl she travelled to South Africa and when in Durban she boarded with a family at number 6 Wimbledon Place, Durban North and she and the daughter of the family became firm friends. She then goes on to describe the house in detail, even down to a stain on the carpet in a bedroom where some make-up was spilt while she occupied the room as a boarder. She named the family and it was the same family the young married couple had bought the house from a few months before that Jumble Sale collection knock on the door.
Total votes: 368
Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:06:18 +0000Coincidence ID:3903