three for the price of one
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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.
Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.
On 25th October 2011 I attended a philosophy lecture at Edinburgh University. The first slide gave the date as the 26th October. At the end of the lecture I had five minutes to kill before my bus so I popped into a charity bookshop. On a whim, I bought a copy of Wittgenstein’s Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow, which tells the story of a meeting which took place in 1946 on the 25th of October.
So far, so 1 in 365ish, right?
One of the protagonists in the argument which took place at the meeting claimed in his autobiography that the meeting had taken place on the 26th October. It was, in fact, the 26th October when I read of the error.
So that’s three for the price of one on coincidences, then...
Date submitted:Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:40:43 +0000Coincidence ID:5492