We visited Cambridge today. It was amazing. The college is simply huge and imposing. The University is actually broken up into a series of colleges. There are academic buildings tht are shared, but the dorms are owned by the colleges. An interesting difference in society between the British and Americans is that rather than saying that they are "studying philosophy" they say that they are "Reading philosophy." As the guide at Cambridge put it, everyone assumes you are going to study so they call it reading. When someone applies to read at Cambridge you actually apply to the college. Each college was founded by various Kings or Princes or other famous people so they have a legecy to hold up. When you apply they have you come in and have an interview. The interview is less to test your knowledge, because they already know you're practically a genius if you've even been considered, and more to test the type of person you are. They want to keep the standard high. Although the tour guide did point out that when his son applied they did ask him a difficult math problem and expect him to solve it without anything besides his head.
Cambridge is the science and mathematical center of England and perhaps even the world. My ingenious person, Charles Babbage the inventor of the computer, studied at Cambridge. He eventually become a Lucasian chair in the mathematics department, though he never actually taught.
The school and town, we learned, is called Cambridge because it stradles the river Cam. Originally there was only one bridge over the river cam which became the center for the college and town that built up around it. This bridge and the town became known as the Cambridge One amazingly fun part of our trip was punting.
Punts are small flat bottom boats that you can ride up and down the river. They are driven by punters who stand on the back of the boat with large pole that look more like polevaulting polls than oars of any sort. You drive the pole into the ground and push. Half our group took a guided Punt tour where a professional takes you up and down the river and talks about the college. The other half attempted to punt themselves, some with more success than others.
I've got pictures of this that I will upload and post later.
