Top of the Empire State Building

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.

Our family travelled to New York just before Christmas. We travelled by taxi from Nottingham to Heathrow airport and we were very early so we went for a coffee. We saw our son's ex-headmaster Mr X across the coffee shop, but he did not see us and we were too far away to speak. We had not seen or spoken to him or heard about him for 4 years since our son left school, which was in a different town. We spent our holiday sightseeing in Central Park, Brooklyn, Harlem and the stores. On the 4th day my husband, younger son and I decided to go to the Empire State Building. Although it was very busy when we went to the 82nd floor balcony, we had paid to go up further to the 102nd floor observatory. We were surprised to see our son and his girlfriend on the 82nd floor as they walked past the glass, but we were even more surprised when we joined the 102nd floor lift queue to see Mr X right behind us. When we chatted, he told us that he and his family had not been on our flight, they were in an hotel in a different part of Manhattan and they had onward travel in the USA the next day.
Total votes: 199
Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:07:21 +0000Coincidence ID:4897