John Logie Baird

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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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Two years ago in September we holidaying in Ontario, Canada, at the house of a friend. We were given the loan of his car to go shopping and had parked the car in a carpark downtown when we were approached by a somewhat unsteady Canadian who was pointing at the numberplate on the front of the car: "B'deck!" he exclaims, "Tha's B'deck!" This meant nothing to us, so we asked him to explain. The plate was BDK, signifying that it was originally plated in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. "Surely you know of Baddeck.....the place where John Logie Baird built his house and transmitted across the Atlantic?" We had not heard of this place and had forgotten about JLB. Perhaps, by the look of his out of town clothes this gentleman was from Nova Scotia and was a bit homesick. Anyway we had a laugh over it and went our separate ways. Later that day I emailed my daughter-in-law back in Scotland, telling her of the encounter. I thought it would be of interest to her because she had spent some time in Nova Scotia. Straightway she emailed back saying that by an amazing coincidence she had just been helping her son with a homework assignment he had been given by the school: it was a piece of research and writing on John Logie Baird's house in Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
Total votes: 462
Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:00:24 +0000Coincidence ID:3598

Comments

I was telling my son that we owe the stereotypical pirate "arrr Jim lad" image to a particular film of Treasure Island. That night I was watching a repeat of QI that told the same story.