D'étranges Coïncidences

What are the chances?! This exclamation greets the scarcely believable coincidence – you're picked up by the same taxi driver several years and thousands of miles apart or, in a second-hand bookshop far from home, you find your own childhood copy of Winnie-the-Pooh on the shelf. But the unlikely is more probable than you think. Against every fibre of common sense, the fact is that it's quite likely that some squirrel, somewhere, will be struck by lightning as it crosses the road. The chaos and unpredictability of our lives is an illusion. There is a rational order to the universe, and it's called mathematics. Fluke is a fascinating investigation into the true nature of chance, a must-read for maths enthusiasts and avid storytellers alike, it tears down the veil of improbability to reveal the wonderfully possible.

Coincidences, the new album by pianist and composer Manuel Zito. His music, which has succeeded more than 12 million streams on music platforms, is a mélange that combines neoclassical references to a declared love for electronic suggestions of contemporary northern European artists, with an effective balance of acoustic and electronic instruments. The album sees the artistic production of Massimo De Vita (Blindur), the post-production of Birgir Jon Birgisson, sound engineer already with Sigur Ros, Bjork, Damien Rice, and was recorded at Forum Studios in Rome.

• Presents a complete catalog of coincidence patterns with numerous illustrative examples
• Defines the many uses and potential pitfalls of coincidences and highlights the situations in which they are most likely to occur
• Explores the range of explanations for coincidences, including the psychosphere as the medium through which many coincidences take place