Rob

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 the early 90's our family went on a trip to Denmark. It was an organised trip including a coach load of family's going to Copenhagen and Lego Land! We arrived at the airport to board our flight only be to told that we already checked in?! It turns out that a family of four like ours who were on the same trip had the same surname as us. Not a huge coincidence but the system did more complex checks than simply checking the name. Turns out the other family had a son and daughter with the initials R and J the same as me and my sister. And they were the same age. The daughter had the same initial as me and was my age and the son the same age as my sister. Again not a massive coincidence as the names were different. However the father had the same name as my Dad was almost the same age and was born in the same town. The mother was Scottish like my mum had the same name and was the same age. Suffice to say that every hotel we were booked thought it was a double booking leading to a difficult week for the poor tour guide.
Total votes: 240
Date submitted:Fri, 23 Jul 2021 15:50:14 +0000Coincidence ID:11453