Hung Wan-sheng points out that the "maths tripos" for students at Oxford and Cambridge was perhaps the hardest test of mathematical ability in the 19th century, but of all those who placed among the highest scorers on it, only one, James Maxwell, went on to become a great mathematician.
洪萬生指出，十九世紀牛津、劍橋優等生數學考試，被認為是檢定數學程度難度最高的考試之一，但歷來成績排行前面的，只有一位麥克斯威爾成為偉大的數學家。