Glastonbury savings!
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.
In 1982 I travelled to the Glastonbury Festival, arriving very late on Thursday night after a car breakdown. With friends I wandered around the pyramid stage area, helped a very ill young man to the medical centre, and was on my way back to our campsite when I saw something on the ground. I picked it up and found a roll of banknotes tied with an elastic band. I pocketed it, intending to hand it in the next morning. In the morning I located another group of friends from my former home town, including my best friend from school. He looked very unhappy, and on asking him why he said that he had lost the money that he had saved up (£100 - a large sum in those days!) on the previous evening. I asked him how much and what it looked like. He described the roll of bank notes tied with an elastic band, which I then produced from my pocket and handed over to him. Yes, it's unlikely, but not beyond possibility!
Date submitted:Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:24:13 +0000Coincidence ID:9918
