It's a small world
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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17 years ago my Wife and I were visiting the Bay of Islands in New Zealand and took a small ferry boat to the town of Russell. We got chatting to the only other person on the boat who asked us where we were from. We replied Guernsey in the Channel Islands and she told us her Brother also lived in Guernsey. Which Parish we enquired and she said he lived on a very small island called Lihou.
There is only one house on Lihou and at that time the States of Guernsey bought the house as the island is a tourist attraction; it has a 12th Century ruined Priory. Our strangers Brother was the only person living on the island as Caretaker !
Lihou can only be reached on foot a few hours each month at spring tides by a causeway 1/4 mile long and people have been known to miss the return by the speed of the huge tides in the Channel Islands and sleep rough overnight! There are no services on the island and we were amazed to meet a relative of the only person living there at the time in a Guernsey population of 60,000 people.
Michael
Date submitted:Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:07 +0000Coincidence ID:5395
