Beyond Coincidence : Stories of Amazing Coincidences and the Mystery and Mathematics That Lie Behind Them

by Plimmer, Martin; King, Brian

• ISBN13: 9780312340360
• ISBN10: 0312340362
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-27
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Summary

Ever wonder what the odds are of being struck by lightning? Or winning the lottery? Or meeting someone fromTimbuktuwith the same middle name as you? BEYOND COINCIDENCE recounts and analyzes over 200 amazing stories of synchronicity, the likes of: Laura Buxton, age ten, releases a balloon from her back yard. It lands 140 miles away in the backyard of another Laura Buxton, also age ten. Two sisters in Alabama decide, independently, to visit the other. En route, their identical jeeps collide and both sisters are killed. A British cavalry officer was fighting in the last year of World War One when he was knocked off his horse by a flash of lightning. He was paralyzed from the waist down. The man moved to Vancouver, Canada where, six years later, while fishing in a river, lightning struck him again, paralyzing his right side. Two years later, he was sufficiently recovered to take walks in a local park when, in 1930, lightning sought him out again, this time permanently paralyzing him. He died soon after. Four years later, lightning destroyed his tomb.

Author Biography

Martin Plimmer is a journalist, broadcaster and author of the fictionalized memoir King of the Castle. Once, while in the waiting room of a hospital after banging his head, Martin found a two-year-old magazine open at an article he had written on the subject of headaches.

Brian King is an award-winning pioneer of radio fly-on-the-wall documentaries; the producer of hundreds of programs for BBC Radio, including the long-running series On the Ropes and also, coincidentally, presented by Martin Plimmer.

Table of Contents

One: Coincidence Under the Microscope
1: THE COSMIC YES!	3	(10)
2: WHY WE LOVE COINCIDENCE	13	(20)
3: IT'S A SMALL WORLD—COINCIDENCE AND CULTURE	33	(16)
4: IT'S A SMALL UNIVERSE—COINCIDENCE AND SCIENCE	49	(16)
5: COINCIDENCE IN THE DOCK	65	(12)
6: LUCK OR COINCIDENCE?	77	(22)
7: DOES COINCIDENCE ADD UP?	99	(14)
Two: Coincidence on the Rampage
1: IT'S A SMALL WORLD	113	(10)
2: IT'S A TOO SMALL WORLD	123	(6)
3: FANCY MEETING You HERE	129	(6)
4: LOST AND FOUND	135	(8)
5: LIFE IMITATING ART	143	(12)
6: TIMELY MANIFESTATIONS	155	(8)
7: JINXES AND CURSES	163	(12)
8: HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF	175	(6)
9: ECHOES	181	(10)
10: NAMES	191	(10)
11: PARALLEL LIVES	201	(16)
12: GOOD LUCK	217	(82)
13: DATES, NUMBERS, AND WRONG NUMBERS	299
14: PSYCHIC COINCIDENCES?	241	(6)
15: BOUNCING BABIES AND GOLF BALLS	247	(6)
16: APOCRYPHA	253	(8)
The Ultimate Coincidence	261
Index 26	5