Senior Wrangler (University of Cambridge)
The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at Cambridge University in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."[1]
Specifically, it is the person who achieves the highest overall mark among the Wranglers – the students at Cambridge who gain first-class degrees in mathematics. The Cambridge undergraduate mathematics course, or Mathematical Tripos, is famously difficult.
Many Senior Wranglers have become world-leading figures in mathematics, physics, and other fields. They include George Airy, John Herschel, Arthur Cayley, James Inman, George Stokes, Isaac Todhunter, Morris Pell, Lord Rayleigh, Arthur Eddington, J. E. Littlewood, Frank Ramsey, Donald Coxeter, Jacob Bronowski, Lee Hsien Loong, Kevin Buzzard, Christopher Budd and Ben Green.
Senior Wranglers were once fêted with torchlit processions and took pride of place in the University's graduation ceremony.[2] Years in Cambridge were often remembered by who had been Senior Wrangler that year.[1]
The annual ceremony in which the Senior Wrangler becomes known was first held in the 18th century. Standing on the balcony of the University's Senate House, the examiner reads out the class results for mathematics,[3] and printed copies of the results are then thrown to the audience below. He no longer announces the students' exact rankings, but he still identifies the Senior Wrangler, nowadays by tipping his academic hat when he reads out the person's name.
Contents
Others who finished in the top 12
The difficulty of the examinations is illustrated by the identities of some of those who have performed well, but less well than the Senior Wrangler.
Those who have achieved second place, known as Second Wranglers, include Alfred Marshall, James Clerk Maxwell, J. J. Thomson, Lord Kelvin, and William Clifford.
Those who have finished between third and 12th include Karl Pearson and William Henry Bragg (third), George Green and G. H. Hardy (fourth), Adam Sedgwick (fifth), John Venn (sixth), Bertrand Russell and Nevil Maskelyne (seventh), Thomas Malthus (ninth), and John Maynard Keynes (12th).
History
Between 1748 and 1909, the University publicly announced the ranking,[4] which was then reported in newspapers such as The Times. The examination was considered to be by far the most important in Britain and the Empire. The prestige of being a high Wrangler was great; the respect accorded to the Senior Wrangler was immense. Andrew Warwick, author of Masters of Theory, describes the term 'Senior Wrangler' as "synonymous with academic supremacy".[5]
Since 1910, successful students in the examinations have been told their rankings privately, and not all Senior Wranglers have become publicly known as such. In recent years, the custom of discretion regarding ranking has progressively vanished, and all Senior Wranglers since 2010 have announced their identity publicly.
The youngest person to be Senior Wrangler is probably Arran Fernandez, who came top in 2013, aged 18 years and 0 months.[6] The previous youngest was probably James Wilkinson in 1939, aged 19 years and 9 months.[7] The youngest up to 1909 were Alfred Flux in 1887, aged 20 years and 2 months[8] and Peter Tait in 1852, aged 20 years and 8 months.[9]
Two individuals have placed first without becoming known as Senior Wrangler. One was the student Philippa Fawcett in 1890. At that time, although the University allowed women to take the examinations, it did not allow them to be members of the University, nor to receive degrees. Therefore they could not be known as 'Wranglers', and were merely told how they had performed compared to the male candidates, for example, "equal to the Third Wrangler", or "between the Seventh and Eighth Wranglers". Having gained the highest mark, Fawcett was declared to have finished "above the Senior Wrangler".
The other was the mathematics professor George Pólya. As he had contributed to reforming the Tripos with the aim that an excellent performance would be less dependent on solving hard problems and more so on showing a broad mathematical understanding and knowledge, G.H. Hardy asked Pólya to sit the examinations himself, unofficially, during his stay in England in 1924–5. Pólya did so, and to Hardy's surprise, received the highest mark, an achievement which, had he been a student, would have made him the Senior Wrangler.[10]
Derived uses of the term
Senior Wrangler's Walk is a path in Cambridge, the walk to and along which was considered to be sufficient constitutional exercise for a student aspiring to become the Senior Wrangler. The route was shorter than other walks, such as Wranglers' Walk and the Grantchester Grind, undertaken by undergraduates whose aspirations were lower.[11]
Senior Wrangler sauce is a Cambridge term for brandy butter, a type of hard sauce made from brandy, butter, and sugar, traditionally served in Britain with Christmas pudding and warm mince pies.[12]
Senior Wrangler is also the name of a solitaire card game, alternatively known as Mathematics and Double Calculation, played with two decks of cards and involving elementary modular arithmetic.[13][14]
Literary references
Fictional Senior Wranglers appearing in novels include Roger Hamley, a character in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, and Tom Jericho, the cryptanalyst in Robert Harris's novel Enigma, who is described as having been Senior Wrangler in 1938.
In George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession, the title character's daughter Vivie is praised for "tieing with the third wrangler," and she comments that "the mathematical tripos" means "grind, grind, grind for six to eight hours a day at mathematics, and nothing but mathematics."
In Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, the character Christopher Tietjens is described as having settled deliberately for only being Second Wrangler, in order to avoid the weight of expectation that the title would create.
In his Discworld series of novels, Terry Pratchett has a character called the Senior Wrangler, a faculty member at the Unseen University, whose first name is Horace.
The compiler of crosswords for The Leader in the 1930s used 'Senior Wrangler' as a pseudonym.[15]
Coaches
The two most successful 19th-century coaches of Senior Wranglers were William Hopkins and Edward Routh. Hopkins, the 'Senior Wrangler Maker', who himself was the 7th Wrangler, coached 17 Senior Wranglers. Routh, who had himself been the Senior Wrangler, coached 27.[16]
Senior Wranglers and runners up, 1748–1909
During 1748–1909, the top two colleges in terms of number of Senior Wranglers were Trinity and St John's with 56 and 54 respectively. Gonville and Caius was third with 13.
Senior Wranglers since 1910
Year | Senior Wrangler | College |
---|---|---|
1914 | Brian Charles Molony[24] | Trinity |
1928 | Donald Coxeter[25] | Trinity |
1930 | Jacob Bronowski[26] | Jesus |
1939 | James Wilkinson[27] | Trinity |
1940 | Hermann Bondi[28] | Trinity |
1952 | John Polkinghorne[citation needed] | Trinity |
1953 | Crispin Nash-Williams[29] | Trinity Hall |
1959 | Jayant Narlikar[30] | Fitzwilliam |
1970 | Derek Wanless[31] | King's |
1973 | Lee Hsien Loong[32][33] | Trinity |
1983 | Christopher Budd | St John's |
1985 | Nick Mee[34] | Trinity |
1990 | Kevin Buzzard[35] | Trinity |
1992 | Ruth Hendry[36] | Queens' |
1998 | Ben Joseph Green[37] | Trinity |
2000 | Toby Gee[38][39] | Trinity |
2001 | Mohan Ganesalingam[40] | Trinity |
2004 | David Loeffler[41] | Trinity |
2007 | Paul Jefferys[42] | Trinity |
2008 | Le Hung Viet Bao[43] | Trinity |
2009 | Thomas Beck[44] | Trinity Hall |
2010 | Zihan Hans Liu[45] | Trinity |
2011 | Sean Eberhard[46] | Gonville and Caius |
2012 | Sean Moss[47] | Trinity |
2013 | Arran Fernandez[6][48] | Fitzwilliam |
2014 | Yang Li[49] | Downing |
2015 | Timothy Large | Trinity |
Senior Wranglers since 1910 also include:
- David Hobson[50] (Christ's College) (1940s)
- Peter Swinnerton-Dyer[51] (Trinity College) (1940s)
- Michael Hall[52] (Trinity College) (1950s)
- Colin Myerscough[53] (Churchill College) (1960s)
See also
Notes
- ↑ In years where there was a tie, individuals tied have been shown as Senior Wrangler, with the next placed candidate(s) as Proxime Accessit; strictly speaking, if n individuals are tied as Senior Wrangler, any runner up is (n+1)-st Wrangler .
- ↑ Thomas Jones, the Senior Wrangler that year, acted as his tutor.
- ↑ Also senior classic.
- ↑ According to legend, Kelvin was so confident he had come top that he asked his servant to run to the Senate House and check who the Second Wrangler was. The servant returned and told him, "You, sir"! Kelvin was reportedly beaten largely on the basis of Parkinson's superior exam technique. The result was reversed in the Smith Prize.
- ↑ Routh found more fame subsequently as a coach of other Senior Wranglers. Indeed for twenty-two consecutive years from 1862, one of his pupils was Senior Wrangler, and he coached twenty-seven in all. His first pupil in 1856 was Third Wrangler, and in 1858 both the Senior and Second Wrangler were coached by him.[21]
- ↑ First Jewish Senior Wrangler. A special grace was passed to allow him to be graduated using a special form of the wording in order to not offend his religious beliefs.
- ↑ Forsyth was one of the men who were principally responsible for the reform of the Tripos system that led to the end of the Tripos ranking.
- ↑ Regulations were changed to split the class list into Parts I & II, and Part III. The examinations for the former were held in June and retained the ordered class list (in contrast to Part III), so two sets of results exist for this year.
- ↑ Actually placed second to Philippa Fawcett.
- ↑ First Indian Senior Wrangler.
- ↑ Eddington was the first person to be Senior Wrangler after only two years of study.[23]
References
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- ↑ Wilkinson, James H. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ It appears that '22nd wrangler' in the entry for William Albin Garratt in Venn. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. is a misprint for '2nd wrangler'; cf Neale, Charles Montague (1907), The Senior Wranglers of the University of Cambridge, from 1748 to 1907: With Biographical, etc., Notes (Bury St. Edmunds: F.T. Groom and Son; 61pp), p. 26; at all events, Garratt took the First Smith's Prize in 1804, with the Senior Wrangler, Kaye, placing Second, although Kaye also took the Senior Classical Medal (for reference without prejudice, at the time, other things being equal, undergraduates at Trinity were given preference for the Smith's Prizes)
- ↑ Classical Tripos established.
- ↑ Founded Hymers College.
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- ↑ An account exists of the 1882 graduation ceremony. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Bronowski's biography at the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Wilkinson's biography at the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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