Physics Forged in the Tripos

摘要

"I ntellectual Cambridge at the present time," wrote a student at the great English university in 1880, "is strictly monotheistic and its god is Tripos." Karl Pearson, the founder of modern statistics, once recalled an occasion in 1875 or 1876 when a fellow freshman mathematics student he invited to breakfast politely declined "because he was too busy working for the Tripos." What was this institution of Tripos that so obsessed generations of students? And how did its significance extend beyond Cambridge? A Tripos was a written examination to determine honors in some field. The queen of these examinations was the Mathematical Tripos, the oldest and most demanding. It also was subject, until 1909, to a curious custom of individual rankings. The top 30 or 40 were called wranglers, and the man who finished first held the envied position of senior wrangler. The announcement of places developed into a considerable spectacle, and the top finishers would have their pictures and short biographies in the newspapers. Among the senior wranglers we find such scientific eminences as William Thomson (Kelvin), J. W. Strutt (Rayleigh), and Arthur Eddington.