Strange connections...

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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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Hi, the first thing I was thinking about when it comes to coincidence is this story, enjoy! When I was 16/17 yrs old I went on holiday with my family, we went on a mule-trekking hol. to a small town in the mountains of Spain (sorry, I can't remember the name). One night I went to the local bar, there I met two other English girls a bit older than me. We got talking and I found out that they had gone to the same primary school as my new boyfriend; now for the coincidence/s...my boyfriend had grown up in another city (Peterborough) and was now in london, but even stranger, the school the girls had been at was an all-girls school...my boyfriend had spent ( a brief) time going to this school because one of his parents had been working there! I think it was potentially unusual to meet these girls, as the small town wasn't at all a tourist destination, the mule-trekking was about it... but the whole going to school with my boyfriend/ it being in another city AND being an all-girls school has to be a statistically unusual coincidence. I'm now 45 and still I think of this strange event :-) I heard your (Dr Davids') interview on Radio 4 (12-3-18) and thought this might be worthy of your study ;-) Olivia P. (now in Oxford, U.K.) P.s: sorry this story doesn't really fit the below list)
Total votes: 228
Date submitted:Mon, 12 Mar 2018 16:56:14 +0000Coincidence ID:9916