THE SMITH'S PRIZE AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY



This is a prize now awarded to research (graduate) students in Mathematics, Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics at Cambridge University. Dr. June Barrow-Green has recently written an article on the history of the Smith's Prize. I am indebted to her for permission to pass on a little of the information in her fascinating account.

On his death in 1768 Robert Smith, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, previously Plumian Professor of Astronomy, left a bequest establishing two annual prizes for proficiency in mathematics and natural philosophy to be awarded to junior Bachelors of Arts. The prizes have been awarded every year since, except for 1917 when there were no candidates.

In her article Dr. Barrow-Green includes the names of all winners of the Smith's Prize from 1769 to 1940. The list contains some of the best known names in Physics and Mathematics, as the examples below show. The article is

" 'A Corrective to the Spirit of too Exclusively Pure Mathematics': Robert Smith (1689 - 1768) and his Prizes at Cambridge University," Annals of Science, 56 (1999), 271 - 316.


SOME FORMER WINNERS OF THE SMITH'S PRIZE

G. B. Airy 1823
G. G. Stokes 1841
Arthur Cayley 1842
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) 1845
J. Clerk Maxwell 1854
J. W. L. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) 1865
J. J. Thomson 1880
E. T. Whittaker 1896
G. H. Hardy 1901
James Jeans 1901
Harry Bateman 1905
Arthur Eddington 1907
J. E. Littlewood 1908
Alan Turing 1936
Fred Hoyle 1938
Abdus Salam 1950

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