Two tales of serendipty

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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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FIRST COINCIDENCE In 1967 I was living and working in my home town of Exeter and every day I used to meet a young chap (whose name I've now forgotten) who used to chat me up. One day he told me that he was moving to London to train as a policeman at Hendon. I told him I was going to work in London too so he said, "Give me a ring when you get there". At first in London I worked as a temp in a hotel and there was a pay phone near our canteen. One lunch time I looked up the number of Hendon and dialed. I got through to their office and they said that cadets couldn't take calls there but that they would give me the number of a call box. If I was lucky someone might be passing who knew my friend. I dialed the call box. There was no ringing tone because someone had just picked up the phone at the other end to make a call. In that split second we had got connected and both said 'Hello'. I said I was looking for 'name of friend' and the voice at the other end said, "I don't believe this! It's me. I just came in to make a call". It would have been quite remarkable if he had been just passing the call box as I rang but he said that there were hundreds of cadets at Hendon and the likelihood of getting him at that time was remote. SECOND COINCIDENCE This also happened when I moved to London. After working as a temp I went for interviews for a permanent job. One day I caught the tube to Euston and as I walked along the platform I recognised a chap standing there looking a bit bewildered. He was someone I had worked with in a summer holiday job in Exeter some years before. Just bumping into him was just a bit amazing but when he told me about his travels that morning it was even more so. He lived in Finchley and caught his morning train as usual but for some reason thought he'd got on the wrong one so got off and got on another one. Then he realised the first train was the right one and the second was the wrong one so he got off again and that was at Euston. He said that was the only morning he had ever done that and the only time he would have been standing there on the Euston platform.
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Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:35:39 +0000Coincidence ID:3701