I went to Leicester University to read Pure Mathematics and Statistics, and spent a lot of time playing chess, tennis and snooker. I remember a big cheer going up the day we proved e = mc2 in class.
I well remember Professor Goodstein telling us that our course was at the cutting edge of mathematics, because the proof he presented us he had completed that very morning.
And I remember our statistics lecturer, Dr Rahman, gravely reviewing the data available on death by horse-kicks in the Prussian army, and not understanding the giggles which accompanied his analysis of the length of screws in a North-East factory.