History
The Smith Prize fund was founded by bequest of Robert Smith upon his death in 1768, having by his will left £3500 South Sea Company stock to the University. Every year two or more junior Bachelors of Arts students who had made the greatest progress in mathematics and natural philosophy were to be awarded a prize from the fund. The prize was awarded every year from 1769 to 1998 except 1917.
From 1769 to 1885 the prize was awarded for the best performance in a series of examinations. In 1854 George Stokes included an exam question on an interesting result William Thomson had written to him about, which we now know as Stokes' theorem. T. W. Körner notes
Only a small handful of students took the Smith's prize examination in the nineteenth century. When Karl Pearson took the examination in 1879, the examiners were Stokes, Maxwell, Cayley, and Todhunter and the examinees went on each occasion to the examiner's house, did a morning paper, had lunch there, and continued their work on the paper in the afternoon.
In 1885 the examination was renamed Part III, (now known as the Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics) and the prize was awarded for the best submitted essay rather than examination performance. According to Barrow-Green
By fostering an interest in the study of applied mathematics, the competition contributed towards the success in mathematical physics that was to become the hallmark of Cambridge mathematics during the second half of the nineteenth century.
In the twentieth century the competition stimulated postgraduate research in mathematics in Cambridge and the competition has played a significant role by providing a springboard for graduates considering an academic career. The majority of prize-winners have gone on to become professional mathematicians or physicists.
The Rayleigh Prize was an additional prize, which was awarded for the first time in 1911.
The Smith's and Rayleigh prizes were only available to Cambridge graduate students who had been undergraduates at Cambridge. The J.T. Knight Prize was established in 1974 for Cambridge graduates who had been undergraduates at other universities. The prize commemorates J.T. Knight (1942-1970), who had been an undergraduate student at Glasgow and a graduate student at Cambridge. He was killed in a motor car accident in Ireland in April 1970.
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