Missing address book (Several coincidences)

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.

Ten years ago we were visiting my daughter in Norfolk, Virginia, USA, when my son rang from Newcastle,UK. He was very fed up as his car had been broken into and among other things his address book had been stolen. At the end of our American holiday we were flying back to Heathrow when high winds caused the jumbo to be diverted to Newcastle airport. As I am a teacher, I used my address book and a public phone to ring the deputy head, Mrs Arnstein, to tell her of my predicament and that we were renting a car to get back to Essex. Five hours later, when we got home, my son rang to say "Mum, I have got you address book, why were you in Newcastle? ". I hadn't even missed it, but these are the amazing coincidences. 1. Someone at Newcastle airport had seen the page opened at A (for Arnstein), had seen an American address of my daughter Faye Arend on the same page, and rang her in the US to say that an address book was found at the airport. (She didn't know about the plane diversion). 2. Assuming it was her brother's address book because of the robbery rang him to say they had found his address book at the airport. 3. As it was a Sunday he was available to go straight away to pick it up, to find that it belonged to his mother!! I often wonder what would have happened if I had rung the Head whose name began with C.
Total votes: 158
Date submitted:Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:34:19 +0000Coincidence ID:6095