Chance meeting

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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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In the early 1970s, while working in Helsinki, a Russian colleague, noting that I came from London, expressed surprise that I didn't know another person he had met from London, as though it was a village where we all knew one another. Not to mention that the person had a common name, probably held by hundreds of Londoners. In 1977, I went to work in New York. Later, a colleague who had arrived the very same week as me mentioned a trip she had made to Russia. And yes, she was the person the Russian in Helsinki had thought I ought to know. We became friends and still are.
Total votes: 410
Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:12:03 +0000Coincidence ID:3644