When the world seems to know where you are, where you've been, where you are going, what you are thinking or have thought at some definite point in Time in your past.

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.

When I was in my late 40's I was driving home from a basket ball game, late at night when a DEAD END sign ahead caused me to turn so that I drove onto a railroad exchange, totaling my car. My head was slammed against the top, all my inner soft content thrust upwards, against my throat, I couldn't breathe for a few minutes. Later, I had to figure out how I turned ONTO a DEAD END street rather than away from it, (for personal reasons it was important to prove I wasn't dumb) so I went back to the place and found out this was the only street end that didn't have a barrier to prevent someone from having the accident I had. The DEAD END sign was intended to prevent semi rigs from entering that short road end, because there was not enough space to turn around. I'd never taken that street before! That night several conditions existed that caused the street to look like any thru street. Those conditions only existed for a couple of days. I was told a huge pile of material had been removed from the street end; it has been there for more than a decade, but it had been removed the day before. It seemed to me a strange situation but as time passed and other well timed events happened I had to realize these 'accidents' were telling me something literally, not symbolically and they had been happening all my life. But I'd not had the 'extra sense' that was creating meaning through them, the unsuspected new meaning created information relevant to my life. This happened , automatically when I understood how they (the events OR The intelligence that creates how they 'speak' to an individual) and how this new form of language has evolved through Time. Its nothing new except for the personalization and of course changes in technology. Few incidents can stand alone, a steady flow of them is necessary to grasp the significance of the precise timing attribute and the automatic creation of new contexts. Time is not linear in this flow. Events that happed years in the past were 'coincidences aimed at the future'. Literally I was shown the DEAD END path I was living in this way, but overall this was unexpected, unsuspected and it 'felt' funny, belatedly. There are simpler 'coincidences' I could write about, this was an introductory event.
Total votes: 219
Date submitted:Sun, 01 Jun 2014 20:35:39 +0000Coincidence ID:7594