Senior Wrangler

Common card · No. 211148

The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain". 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 went on to become prominent figures in mathematics and other sciences. They include astronomers Sir John Herschel and Sir George Biddell Airy; physicists Sir Gilbert Walker, Sir George Stokes and Lord Rayleigh; and pure mathematicians such as Arthur Cayley, Ben Green and John Edensor Littlewood. Senior Wranglers were once fêted with torchlit processions and took pride of place in the university's graduation ceremony. Years in Cambridge were often remembered by who had been Senior Wrangler that year. The annual ceremony...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Richard Bankes Harraden (1778–1862), Public domain