greatly influenced, by social position or preaching, some 20,000 Puritans who ultimately left England for New England and especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Great Migration decade of the 1630s.
=== Mathematics and mathematical physics ===
The university quickly established itself as a global leader in the study of mathematics. The university's examination in mathematics, known as the Mathematical Tripos, was initially compulsory for all undergraduates studying for the Bachelor of Arts degree, the most common degree first offered at Cambridge. From the time of Isaac Newton in the late 17th century until the mid-19th century, the university maintained an especially strong emphasis on applied mathematics, and especially mathematical physics. Students awarded first class honours after completing the mathematics Tripos exam are called wranglers, and the top student among them is known as the Senior Wrangler, a position that has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."
The Cambridge Mathematical Tripos is highly competitive and has helped produce some of the most famous names in British science, including James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, and Lord Rayleigh. However, some famous students, such as G. H. Hardy, disliked the Tripos system, feeling that students were becoming too focused on accumulating high exam marks at the expense of the subject itself.
Pure mathematics at the University of Cambridge in the 19th century achieved great things, though it largely missed out on substantial developments in French and German mathematics. By the early 20th century, however, pure mathematical research at Cambridge reached the highest international standard, thanks largely to G. H. Hardy and his collaborators, J. E. Littlewood and Srinivasa Ramanujan. W. V. D. Hodge and others helped establish Cambridge as a global leader in geometry in the 1930s.
=== Modern period ===
The Cambridge University Act 1856 formalised the university's organisational structure and introduced …
