Ralph and Susan

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.

Originally Ralph was living with a girlfriend who practiced future-seeing. As he was leaving for an afternoon in the Harvard library, she mentioned that something extraordinary would befall him at two-o'clock. While there he fell while carrying a lot of books down a staircase, and pretty Susan, who was walking up, helped him gather the books and regain his composure. He noticed then that it was two-o'clock. He invited Susan for coffee, and while there he reached across in a sudden impulse, took her hand, and said "Will you marry me?" After some months of happy marriage the two were exchanging stories of their earlier days, and Susan mentioned that five years before she had hiked the Appalachian Trail, going North and carrying her large Japanese musical instrument. Most notable was the time she was accosted by a naked man decorated as a Native American and chanting a Native American hymn as he danced South. Yep. It was Ralph. Susan, he then realized, was the girl he had passed on the Trail who was "carrying a bedpost".
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Date submitted:Mon, 30 Aug 2021 23:26:53 +0000Coincidence ID:11667