My one and single pen friend

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.

I have had only ONE pen friend in my life. (By "pen friend" I define a single partner in a continuous communication whom I have never met personally. ) I was reading "coincidence stories" in a web portal and HER story had the strongest appeal to me... We exchanged several emails and lots of coincidences occurred, some of them I would qualify "extraordinary"..., but it is only recently that I caught sight of her birthday on her Facebook: exactly the same es mine. --- (SAME YEAR too !) The mathematical chance of this I would figure 1:30 000. (Of course it depends e. g to which age-group you belong. If you are , say, 102, chances are less to find someone with exectly the same birthday in a random group... )
Total votes: 281
Date submitted:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 11:10:17 +0000Coincidence ID:7676