I don't believe in Coincidences and this is why!

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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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I remember it was a Wednesday morning, sometime ago, and I needed to speak to three people about some of my charity work that I was doing for the KELY Support Group. It was very important to me to get these matters finalized in a timely manner, however I got busy with my “day job” and wasn’t able to do anything about contacting these people. Later in the day busily rushing to a luncheon appointment I jumped onto the MTR (mass transit) to find, standing next to me, one of the people I wanted to talk too. We exchanged the information required and I proceeded to my luncheon. After being heavily involved in discussion during my business luncheon, I got up to leave the restaurant, and as I turned to leave the table, I saw, sitting a couple of tables away, the second person I needed to speak to about KELY. We exchanged the information required and I went back to my office feeling pretty pleased that I had, with no outward effort on my part, at least managed to see two of the people that I needed to see that day. The rest of the afternoon was pretty normal and as I made my way home I thought it had been a good day’s work and fortuitous that I had made two out of the three contacts I had in mind. Then something interesting happened. I was in Pacific Place, a shopping mall in Hong Kong, and as I was about to get on an escalator to take me to the place where I normally caught my bus home, I suddenly felt that I was going the wrong way. My logic said get on the escalator that’s the way home, but my feeling was get off the escalator you are going the wrong way. Although tired after a hectic day, I decided to go with my feelings, and jumped off the escalator. I then took a longer route to the bus stop that led me past several shops including a McDonald’s, and as I passed McDonald’s the third person that was on my list to see that day came out of McDonald’s. I had managed, without any perceived effort to see all three of the people I needed to that day.
Total votes: 147
Date submitted:Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:38:34 +0000Coincidence ID:5874