Statistics in a Modern World 800
Coincidences

A coincidence is a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, but with no apparent causal connection. Should we really be surprised by these coincidences? Remember that when so many "unlikely" events are possible, according to the laws of probability, some of them are bound to happen. Like these...

I went to my family's Christmas party at my uncle's house. I was involved in a secret Santa grab bag where you buy a gift for the person that you drew from a hat. I got my cousin Adam who happens to have the same birthday as me but is two years younger. It turns out that on the day of the exchange we unwrapped our gifts and we bought each other the same exact gifts. Also, when we talked about how we got the gifts for each other it was identical. We both purchased the gift by phone from watching the same program on a late night broadcast. (J.A.)

I attended Clarion University for 1 1/2 years. During my first semester, I made a friend in my Spanish class. One Friday in October, I mentioned that I was going home for the weekend, and my friend said he was doing the same. When I asked where he lived, he said Pittsburgh. Then I asked which highschool he went to. It turned out we both graduated together from the same highschool. Then when I was home for the weekend, I went to visit a friend who lives next to the house I used to live in. When I was leaving, my friend from Clarion walked out of my old house. It turned out that he lives in my old house and we went to the same highschool, but we never met until we were students at Clarion University. (Leslie.B.)

A few years ago there was an article in the newspaper about "Katie Brown" who had recently won the indoor rock climbing championship. A few weeks ago a friend of mine emailed me to tell me to look for an article in the newspaper about an indoor rock climber "Xavier Prines" with whom he also shared the same name. (K.B.)

In the mid-1970's my family and I took a summer vacation to Montreal, Canada. While there we visited the Exposition from a few years earlier. As we were leaving the Japanese Exhibition, we ran into Mark, a classmate of mine. He and his family were also in Montreal to spend the week and visit the Exposition. (S.B.)

While watching TV with my dad, the daily lottery came on. I decided to try and predict the winning numbers before they came on. Not only did I pick all four numbers correctly and in the correct order, the TV station made an announcement a week later saying no one had claimed their prize. (C.B.)

One night this year, I went to a little bar in Shadyside. There were probably no more than 50 people there. My friend introduced me to a friend of his whom I didn't know and we started talking. It turned out that he was from my hometown, Williamsport, and he had come with a girl who was from Montoursville, which is about five minutes from my house. Here, in this little bar, were three people from the same town. What are the chances of that? (K.C.)

According to the National Institute of Health, "When both parents have sickle cell trait, they have a 25% chance with each pregnancy of having a child with SS disease. If one parent has sickle cell trait and the other has a beta thalassemic disorder, they are at the same risk for having a child with a sickle beta thalassemia syndrome." I have five children and my youngest child has Sickle Beta Thalessemia. My son is 4 years old and his name is Jhavon Craighead. His condition is monitored closely by Children's Hospital Hematology/Oncology Dept. However, there is another boy name Jayvon Craighead who is about 6 years old with the same condition. He too is monitored at Children's Hospital. He attends the same school as my next oldest son, Charles. Last year, Jayvon and Charles were in the same classroom! Jayvon's father is the son of my husband's cousin! (D.C.)

The Number One: I really do not know if this would be "coincidental", but it was rather odd. Last year I had to undergo some minor surgery and it seemed as if everything revolved around the #1. Let me explain: Date of surgery: 11/11. Time of surgery: 11 a.m. Building #: #1. Floor #: #1. O.R.#: #1. Prep Room #: #111. Locker #: #1. Release time: 1:11 p.m. Date of Birth: 1/11. Odd, isn't it? (K.D.)

I called to make a doctor's appointment at my local primary care center. I was sitting in the waiting room and the nurse called my name. When I got up and started to walk towards her, she had an unusual look on her face. When we got to the exmination room, she asked me for my birthday. The file she had was for Christy Henry but it was for a much older woman by the same name. At first we both thought someone had made a mistake on my birth year but when we compared addresses and medical histories we realized that this was another woman. I found out this woman lives in a small town about 10 minutes from my hometown, which is also very small. What really surprises me is that we hadn't run into this situation earlier, being that we lived so close to one another. Now when I make doctor, dental, or eye appointments I make sure they have the right Christy Henry! (C.H.)

A friend of my mother's died about 30 years ago in a car accident in California. HIS mother died exactly 20 years before the day of the accident. (M.K.)

My favorite coincidence is my name. I was adopted into a German-Polish family who gave me the name Amy (meaning "beloved") Sharon (meaning "princess" or "melodious" or "field") Kreger (meaning "warrior"). They claim not to have known about the meanings of these "words"---even my father, who considers himself a German historian of sorts. So, these people totally unrelated to me, gave me a "fate" name: The Beloved Warrior Princess of the Field. (A.K.)

During my senior year in highschool, two of my friends went to PSU for orientation. One of them, Chelsea, met a kid there who was a sophomore at the time. His name was Jay, and Chelsea and he began talking for the rest of the year. At the end of our senior year, we had "senior week" with a bunch of our friends at OC, MD. Chelsea had invited Jay for the last night we were down there. It was the first time I met him and his friends, so I took a bunch of pictures of them after we all met for some memories. A half a year later, I came to Pitt for ATR two weeks before classes started my freshman year. A girl in my ATR group, Brooke Plummer (who is in this class as well!), was the first girl I met at Pitt. We were hanging out in my room one night and she was looking through my pictures and casually said, "Hey, I know Jay." (She was from Lewistown, he was from OC, MD.) She met him at PSU as well two years ago and dated him for a few months---I never knew just how "related" everyone could be. Random and weird! Also, this isn't really a coincidence, just outrageous, we had 8 sets of twins in our graduating class (including myself, that's how I know!) Class size was 150 to 160. (K.L.)

(Kathy Nilles) My parents live in Hampton, a suburb about 20 minutes north of Pittsburgh. I have lived there since I was fourQalmost all of my life (excluding last year, when I went to school in Buffalo). When my parents moved into our current house, they were surprised to find that another family by the name of Nellis lived up the street from us. My parents had three children; my older brothers Patrick and Mike, and myself. This family also had three children; the oldest, Todd, is one year older than Patrick, the middle one, Mike, is one year older than my brother Mike, and youngest, Katie, is one year older than me. The Nellis family moved to another house within Hampton shortly after we moved in. We didn't hear from them until Patrick entered highschool, because the school got their names confused and mailed Patrick the wrong report card. The confusion continued with Mike and myself when we entered highschool. Since it wasn't a large school, we shared some of the same teachers, who never failed to ask me if I was related to Katie and Mike and Todd or Mike and Patrick. Katie and I were actually in some of the same classes. I always sat behind her because we were seated alphabetically, and the teachers always mixed us up. Furthermore, Katie and I both ran cross country and track, and our older brothers were all good athletes. Mike Nilles and Mike Nellis were both stellar soccer players, who even looked similar, and who shared a lot of playing time on the field. It drove the referees, opposing coaches, and announcers at away games crazy---they could never figure it out. I never heard of two families with such a similar last name being so similar. (K.N.)

In July of 1998, my friends and I went to Miami, Florida for vacation. While we were down there we went to a couple of dance clubs. At one of the dance clubs called Baja I met a boy named Brian who was a bartender at the dance club we were at. We hung out the whole week and when I went home we never talked again. In April of 1999, my friends and I went on spring break to Miami, Florida. We were laying on the beach and a group of guys approached us. We all started talking and I noticed that one of the guys looked familiar. I started asking him questions to see where I knew him from. Well, he ended up being Brian the bartender that I met in 1998. What a small world! (K.P.)

My coincidence first takes place many years ago when I was about ten years old and living just south of the Pittsburgh area. My parents, realizing that I was somewhat of an aggressive adolescent, decieded to sign me up for the junior wrestling camp. I really was not that thrilled about the decision, mostly because I was afraid of the kids that were bigger than me. There was one kiid there that simply put was big and mean. Needless to say, this certain youth did not care for me that much and absolutely tormented me the entire week. At the end of the week, when my parents came to pick me up, I was so anxious to leave that I resorted to playing sick just so that we could leave early and miss the awards show. I honestly had nightmares about that kid for some time. Many years passed and I had stuck with wrestling all the way up through highschool. My junior year I qualified to wrestle in the regional tournament and was quite happy with it. The tournament took place in Long Island, New York and lasted about three days. I moved through the ranks, and remained beat less and was anticipating my semi-final match. I acquired the name and school of my opponent but neither was of any use, I did not know of this wrestler. Well, as I am preparing for the match I get my first glimpse of my opponent, and it is no other than my special friend from camp. This is just my luck I thought to myself. Things from your past do in fact come back to haunt you. Because I was so rattled when I saw him that I was defeated in the match and lost the tournament. (A.P.)

I studied abroad in London, Fall 1999, and had a 10 day "Fall Break" at the end of October. I decided to travel through Italy, and the cheapest way to go was by train. While riding the train from Florence to Rome, I passed the time writing postcards...I happened to pull out my address book, which had a Pitt sticker on it, to look for a zip code. I accidentally dropped the book and the older gentleman across the aisle from me picked it up. As he returned it to me, he noticed the sticker and asked if I was a student there. I replied yes, and he chuckled because he and his wife grew up on the South Side and all four of their children went to Pitt. I found that it was quite a coincidence that I was 7,000 miles away from Pittsburgh and the person sitting next to me grew up in my hometown and his kids were alumni of the university. (E.S.)

I'm not sure if this is a great example of a coincidence but my best friend, Julie, and I have a lot of things in common. For instance, her name is Julie Rae and I'm Jessica Robyn. She has an older sister that went to a college in New York and I have an older sister (same number of years apart) that went to college in New York. We have a lot of the same dolls from when we were little. Our dads are both Israeli. We both love peanut butter cups. Julie and I wear the same size and have the same taste in clothes. We also date the same kinds of boys. In fact, once we dated best friends at the same time! (Jessica.S.)

During highschool I played on an A.A.U. basketball team. We traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana for a national basketball tournament in the summer of '98. My team played a team from Michigan who had a girl in their team that had the same name as me (Becky Spinella). This made it rather confusing for the announcer of the game. Everytime either of us scored or fouled, he distinctly had to say our number and color of our jersey extra loud. It was quite amusing, and we won the game! (B.S.)

Although I am from the Pittsburgh area, I decided in highschool that I wanted to attend college out of state. I chose Purdue University, a school with an excellent academic reputation, although it isn't very well-known around here. My highschool rarely sends anyone to Purdue; usually no more than one or two students a year from a graduating class of roughly 400. I knew my sophomore year that one girl from my highschool was going to be attending Purdue as a freshman. I never ran into her during the year, as Purdue has about 45,000 people including students, staff and professors on campus. After my sophomore year I changed majors and decided to transfer to Pitt. I still visit often to see my friends and my boyfriend. This past August I spent a few days out there. My boyfriend, who lives off campus, and I needed to go to the grocery store for a few items. This particular store doesn't get a whole lot of students because it is fairly far away from campus, and during the summer most of the students go home. Inside the store, I bent over to pick up a basket to hold our items and as I turned around I nearly smacked into a woman reaching for a shopping cart. I excused myself but didn't really bother to look at her as I was turning toward the grocery aisles. However, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was still looking at me. When I looked at her this time, I took a double-take before I realized that she was the girl who had graduated from my highschool and had just finished her freshman year at Purdue. We spent a couple minutes talking before we both went on to do our grocery shopping., Apparently she was working over the summer as a baby sitter for a working family in the area. As luck would have it, we both finished our shopping at the same time, and as we were exiting the store and walking toward our cars, we realized that, although we didn't arrive at the same time, we had managed to park nose to nose in the parking lot. We said goodbye and that was it. It was the first and only time I saw her at Purdue! (Jennifer .S.)

I went on vacation with my family skiing. We went to a big lodge and befriended another family with kids same age as me and my sister. Upon leaving we bumped into them on our way home at a museum a few weeks later. We then flew on vacation to Florida and met them coincidentally at the same motel where we were staying. (Joann.S.)

When I was a freshman in highschool, I had a dream that I was on a mountain skiing with both my dad and my sister. I had no skiing experience at that time and neither did my sister. I think that my dad had been skiing before, but it was nothing I had ever concerned myself with. I had remembered that dream so well because in the middle of the skiing I had taken a ski lift that I could not see and after it had taken me up so far I began to fall. The feeling like you are falling in a dream makes them stand out that much more. The next week my father asked my mom, my sister, and myself to meet him for a weekend of skiing. My mom did drive us to meet my father, but she never got on the slopes. The people on the slopes that day ended up being the same people from the dream...I never did hit the ground in the dream, but boy did I fall repeatedly on real skis. (R.V.)

I ran into my favorite high school teacher in a store just outside of Kilarney, Ireland. I met my mate at a national conference in Washington, D.C.---we found we had attended and graduated from a highschool in the same small town of 32,000 in Wisconsin. Additionally we are both left-handed, each moved 5 times before we graduated from highschool and attended 3 different universities and have an affinity for Ford Mustangs of the 69-71 era...the list could go on. His mother: Sagitarius; Him: Pisces; My mother: Pisces; Myself: Sagitarius; Our daughter: Pisces [Probably a statistically higher chance of this than it seemed to me initially.]

During my summer before coming to Pitt, I continually received papers from the housing office, with what I thought was an error. In both the spot where my name, and my roommate's name should be, was typed "Bryan Gaughan". I wrote this off as a typo until I met my roommate the first day and found out we really did have the same names. This lead to a lot of confusion, as you can imagine. (Bryan Gaughan)


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