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I've heard it said that ten of the world's greatest discoveries were made in Cambridge. I'm an Oxford guy myself but I'm curious, what were the discoveries which whoever made that claim might have had in mind?
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#77923. Asked by gmackematix. (Mar 27 07 6:54 PM)
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zbeckabee
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Fred Sanger - Building blocks of insulin The molecular structure of insulin was not uncovered until the 1950s.
Working at Cambridge University, Fred Sanger revealed the exact order of the 51 basic building blocks, or amino acids, that make up the insulin molecule. The discovery meant that insulin could be manufactured and made much more widely available.
The Sanger Institute in Hinxton, a genome research institute, is named after him.
This site has a good list of others.
 http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/features/2006/07/25/85c2fe1c-12ad-4036-a45c-777905063e16.lpf
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toughynutter
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"1628 William Harvey of Gonville and Caius College, publishes his celebrated treatise, 'De motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus', (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), describing his discovery of the mechanism of blood circulation.
...1871 James Clerk Maxwell returns to Cambridge as the first Cavendish Professor of Physics. Two years afterwards he publishes his 'Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism' and later outlines his theory of electromagnetic radiation, confirming him as the leading theoretical physicist of the century
...1897 J.J. Thomson, Cavendish Professor of Physics, discovers the electron
...1912 During a walk on the Backs, the young Lawrence Bragg has an idea that will lead to his discovery of the mechanism of X-ray diffraction. Three years later, he shares his Nobel prize for Physics with his father, W.H. Bragg.
...1932 The atom is split for the first time. The work, giving birth to the study of nuclear physics, is carried out by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory. Their Nobel prize for Physics is awarded in 1951.
...1968 Anthony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell make the most exciting recent observation in astrophysics by discovering pulsating stars or 'pulsars' using Cambridge's Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. Their work alters the course of modern cosmology.
...1997 Professor Michael Pepper and his team discover a new standard for electric current."
http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/pubs/history/centuries.html
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Arpeggionist
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Henry Cavendish, an odd character himself, set up the Cavendish labs at Cambridge, where the world has been going to do serious science ever since. Cavendish was able to calculate the mass of the Earth with uncanny accuracy in the 1780s (I'm not entirely sure on the date), and ever since then other great discoveries have been made at his labs.
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