An Encounter with the law, pi and impulsive decisions

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.

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This event is connected to the coincidence #8191 I was sued for specific performance, its too long a story to tell so I'll skip over the details except that the property I wanted to sell didn't get financing until the wonderful river front home I had contracted to buy was sold to a back up buyer. The contract my buyer and I had was expired but it was desirable property so they hired a lawyer who told me "contracts don't mean a thing'. I was outraged so I went to a lawyer that took my case to the State Supreme Court. One day I was writing checks to pay my attorney, using my ironing board for my desk. I put the check into an envelope, then without any intent to do so, my hand reached over to a packet of pictures I'd just had developed and picked up one, then slip it into the envelope. I mailed the letter. Almost a year later (it was a long legal event) I was on the phone with my attorney when he asked me if I remembered sending him a picture of a pi model. I said yes then he told me he'd mailed it to a friend of his who was writing a book about pi. The book was ready to publish and his friend wanted his authors' picture taken beside that model. So the American version of David Blatners' Joy of Pi has that picture on the jacket. I had no reason to send the picture to him, we never talked about anything but the legal situation, yet it was nearby just that day.
Total votes: 384
Date submitted:Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:47:12 +0000Coincidence ID:8196