"I met your Dad last week"

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.

When I was 16 years old I was at boarding school in St Andrews, Scotland (1972). My parents were living in Beirut. There was an archeological dig going on in the town and I volunteered to participate. I was in a trench, chipping away at a wall and next to me was a young man, a student at the university. We struck up a conversation and when I mentioned my name, he asked me if I was related to Dr Mahmud Ghul. I said 'yes, he's my father'. He then told me he'd been in Lebanon the week previously where he'd gone specifically to meet my father (an academic) and had dinner with him and my mother.
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Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:12:02 +0000Coincidence ID:4290