Encyclopedia > University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory
The Computer Laboratory is Cambridge University's computer science department. For much of its history it also provided the University's Computing Service.
On 2 December1936 the University's General Board published a Report on the Establishment of a Computing Laboratory intended to provide a computing service for general use, and to be a centre for the development of computational techniques in the University. The Mathematical Laboratory was subsequently founded on 14 May1937, under the leadership of John Lennard-Jones, though it did not get properly established until after World War II.
In October 1946 work began under Maurice Wilkes on EDSAC which subsequently became the first fully-operational and practical stored program computer when it ran its first program on 6 May1949.
The Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science was the world's first taught course in computing, starting in 1953.
In 1970 the Mathematical Laboratory was renamed the Computer Laboratory, with separate departments for Teaching and Research and the Computing Service. The two did not fully separate until 2001, when the Computer Laboratory moved out to the new William H Gates building in West Cambridge, leaving behind an independent Computing Service.
Building on its long and distinguished history, the Computer Laboratory continues with world class teaching and research: it received a 6* rating (the top rating) in the recent UK RAE (research assessment exercise) re-designation process and was rated as excellent in the most recent (2003) UK teaching quality assessment.
Over the course of the last century the University of Cambridge has been the origin of fundamental advances in nuclear physics, molecular biology and computer science.
Some of the Cambridge developments of that period belong in the basic stock of computing knowledge, for example the ideas of subroutines and of microprogramming.
Feeds |
Contact