Spooky phone call
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.
Back in the early 1990s working for a government department, we had a mainframe computer. If the computer crashed there was a rota list of staff members to come out and reboot the machine. The guard would check to see who was on, ring the phone number next to the name and the individual would come in and do the necessary. Next to the name was also the staff number of each of the individuals on the rota.
A Saturday morning, computer crashed, guard looks up the relevant number and erroneously rings the staff number, not the phone number. Phone rings. Passer by answers the phone ringing in a BT phone box. And yes, it was the individual the guard was trying to contact.
Date submitted:Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:32:30 +0000Coincidence ID:6568
