Safari Photos
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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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Myself (Martin) and my wife (Tina) went on our first holiday abroad in 1991, a 5 weeks overland safari in Africa. I took around 800 photos in the days before digital. It took a fortune to develop them and a long time to put the best ones in albums. I promised some friends in London that I would meet up with them to show them the results and I arranged to meet them in London in a pub near Trafalgar Square. After a few drinks I went to the bar to get the next round in. While jostling at the crowded bar the person next to me send "Hello, what a coincidence!!". It was Jessica who was on the the same trip in Africa. We had met in Africa, hadn't kept in touch, she lived in Telford, we lived in Sheffield and we had bumped into each other at the bar in a pub in London. And I had the photos from the trip with me!! The pub was so crowded that it was even quite easy to miss each other in the same room if we hadn't gone to the bar at the same time. What are the chances of that? The second coincidence about this trip is that the following year we were in Botswana, another African country but one we hadn't visited before. In a supermarket in Maun somebody shouted across the aisle "Hi Martin!". It was the tour guide from the trip the year before. I remarked to somebody later "isn't that amazing - it was probably the only supermarket within 200 miles and we were both shopping there". They responded "well, if it's the only supermarket within 200 miles, then where do you think they would be doing their shopping?". I guess that does narrow the odds a bit but still quite a coincidence. Finally, just on general coincidences please work this one out for me. About a dozen times in my life I have either been reading or speaking an uncommon word at precisely the same moment that the same word has been spoken on the radio or TV. On the one hand, that sounds like an amazing coincidence to me - on the other hand isn't it likely that at least one person in x million will be saying that word at the same time as it's uttered on TV or radio - so is that really that unusual? - but even then what are the chances it happened to me? I have been waiting for years for someone to answer these and other similar questions - Tina just thinks I'm nuts and every time I say "what are the chances of that?", she just groans.
Date submitted:Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:37:50 +0000Coincidence ID:6237
