The unknown guest
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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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1980. I had dinner in a friend's home in Stockwell, London. There are other guests I have never met and I am useless with remembering names. Twenty years later I am in Inverness airport. The departure lounge is crowded but a face seems oddly familiar. I would not have approached the guy had my travelling companion not urged me to do so, as I was not confident after twenty years and a single meeting that he was indeed someone from the dinner. He was, and as he didn't recognise me or my companion (who was also at the dinner), he was stunned - and was unaware that our mutual friend had sadly died a few years after the dinner. But I still have no idea who he was.
Date submitted:Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:07:10 +0000Coincidence ID:6616
