A Tripos is an academic examination that originated at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. They include any of several examinations required to qualify an undergraduate student for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. Undergraduate students studying mathematics, for instance, ultimately take the Mathematical Tripos, and students of English literature take the English Tripos.
Godfrey Harold Hardy was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics.
Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book, The Ascent of Man. He was widely regarded as "one of the most revered intellectuals on the global stage."
John Venn, FRS, FSA was an English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing Venn diagrams, which are used in logic, set theory, probability, statistics, and computer science. In 1866, Venn published The Logic of Chance, a groundbreaking book which espoused the frequency theory of probability, arguing that probability should be determined by how often something is forecast to occur as opposed to "educated" assumptions. Venn then further developed George Boole's theories in the 1881 work Symbolic Logic, where he highlighted what would become known as Venn diagrams.
James Hardy Wilkinson FRS was a prominent figure in the field of numerical analysis, a field at the boundary of applied mathematics and computer science particularly useful to physics and engineering.
At the University of Cambridge in England, a "Wrangler" is a student who gains first-class honours in the Mathematical Tripos competition. The highest-scoring student is the Senior Wrangler, the second highest is the Second Wrangler, and so on. By contrast, the person who achieves the lowest exam marks while still earning a third-class honours degree is known as the wooden spoon.
Philippa Garrett Fawcett was an English mathematician and educator. She was the first woman to obtain the top score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos exams. She taught at Newnham College, Cambridge, and at the normal school in Johannesburg, and she became an administrator for the London County Council.
Sir Horace Lamb was a British applied mathematician and author of several influential texts on classical physics, among them Hydrodynamics (1895) and Dynamical Theory of Sound (1910). Both of these books remain in print. The word vorticity was invented by Lamb in 1916.
A wooden spoon is an award that is given to an individual or team that has come last in a competition. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous events. The term is of British origin and has spread to other English-speaking countries. In most cases it is simply a colloquial term for coming last – there is no actual award given.
Edward John Routh was an English mathematician, noted as the outstanding coach of students preparing for the Mathematical Tripos examination of the University of Cambridge in its heyday in the middle of the nineteenth century. He also did much to systematise the mathematical theory of mechanics and created several ideas critical to the development of modern control systems theory.
The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the world's third-oldest university in continuous operation. The university's founding followed the arrival of scholars who left the University of Oxford for Cambridge after a dispute with local townspeople. The two ancient English universities, although sometimes described as rivals, share many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge.
John Blissard was a Church of England vicar, educator, and mathematician who invented what came to be known as the umbral calculus. Although he never held a university post, Blissard was an active mathematician, especially during the 1860s when he was in his late fifties and early sixties. He published mostly in the Cambridge-based Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.
Edgar William Middlemast (1864–1915) was a British mathematician and educator in India in the early twentieth century. He served as the Deputy Director of the Department of Public Instruction, Madras Presidency, as Professor of Mathematics at the Presidency College, Madras from 1910 and as Principal of the college in 1915.
John Archibald Venn was a British economist. He was President of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1932 until his death, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University 1941–1943, university archivist, and author, with his father, of Alumni Cantabrigienses. His father was logician John Venn.
Robert Rumsey Webb, known as R. R. Webb, was a successful coach for the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. Webb coached 100 students to place in the top ten wranglers from 1865 to 1909, a record second only to Edward Routh.
Robert Alfred Herman (1861–1927) was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who coached many students to a high wrangler rank in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. Herman was senior wrangler in 1882.
Charles Niven (1845–1923) was a Scottish mathematician and physicist who spent most of his career at the University of Aberdeen. He published on mechanics, electricity, and heat.
William Loudon Mollison was a Scottish mathematician and academic. From 1915 to 1929, he was Master of Clare College, Cambridge.
Thomas Oliver Harding was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge University in 1873.
