What are the odds?

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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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Before the days of mass mobile phones I was called by a chap named John, who thought that because of my business I may be interested to buy a property he owned about 10 miles away, I was keen to view the property and took his details and arranged a viewing time of 0900 the following Friday. I was self employed at this time and had been shortlisted for a large contract which I had tendered for and was asked to attend a meeting on that Friday morning to finalise the deal. Unfortunately I had mislaid the contact details of John and was not able to inform him that I could not make the viewing on the arranged day, the property was vacant so John would have driven there wasting a whole morning waiting for me to arrive. I was unhappy that I could not contact him to cancel but with the lost scrap of paper containing his phone number there was little I could do. On the Thursday after finishing work I was in the Shower and my wife called up to tell me that a friends estranged wife was on the phone in some distress because she couldn't contact her husband and wondered if I knew where he was? I asked my wife to take her number and I would call her when I got out of the shower. When I made the call I hit a wrong digit, a man answered and I asked if Ann was there? he said "There is no Ann here" I said sorry, must be a wrong number, the man on the phone said "Is that you Graham? I said yes who are you? he said "it's John I'm meeting up with you tomorrow at 0900". I was stunned, I said to him I had lost his number but needed to postpone the viewing and that this was an incredible coincidence, one wrong digit led me to the very man I had been trying to locate all week. John then said this is even stranger still, the phone you called is the one at the property and I have only been here for two minutes to pick up some papers and was just heading back out the door when the phone rang.
Total votes: 367
Date submitted:Mon, 09 Apr 2018 23:25:27 +0000Coincidence ID:9975