"I am that which throws sand in your eye."

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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.

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This happened 35 years ago at work: a strange thought occurred into my mind early in the morning: "I am that which throws sand in your eye." Spontaneous thought such as this was a new thing to me, I noticed it, was curious then amused. A co-worker came over and during the conversation he mentioned having been in a war zone during a sand storm during WW2. Wind was so powerful that he still had some sand particles embedded in his body( his thigh and buttocks) that occasionally bothered him. I had not mentioned my thought but his story formed no association with it. A few minutes later another co-worker brought a box of donuts (a Friday custom) and I chose my favorite. Before he left he whispered: "You might want to wash your face, you have 'sandy' granules in the corner of your eye." It was only then that I saw a connection, it was bit funny. But how could a thought I'd not mentioned trigger another persons' decades old story to come to mind? Was he too polite to tell me directly what he saw? Later that day I read an incident that Theodore Reik, a life long friend of Sigmund Freud and one of my favorite authors, experienced in which he'd encountered a violent sand storm, when he was an officer.
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Date submitted:Wed, 24 Sep 2014 18:02:22 +0000Coincidence ID:7799