The ring wants to be found

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 my (now) wife and I were dating, we were enjoying a stroll in a small park on a footpath that went around an artificial pond in the park's center. At one point, I stopped and looked down, next to a tree by the side of the path. There was a huge mushroom on the ground, and something glinting beneath it. I picked it up, and it turned out to be a silver ring, made to look like a ribbon wound in the shape of a heart. Since I'm generally rather observant, I gave it to my (at the time) girlfriend and didn't give it much more thought. A few weeks later, she was working in her chemistry lab when a lab assistant noticed the ring and mentioned that it looked just like a ring she'd lost in that very park months earlier, and had gone back several times to look for it. Not only that, but she was only temporarily in the US, and had bought the ring in Singapore, and never expected to see it again.
Total votes: 993
Date submitted:Wed, 24 Feb 2016 18:15:48 +0000Coincidence ID:8453