As any middle-aged Cantabrigian might remember it from his student days, Britain's great Cambridge University was a mellow place with a flavor of its own. But today, all that is historic Cambridge seems threatened. As one student put it: "The university of Byron is being overshadowed by Newton's and Darwin's."
The big change began during World War II. With its long record of achievement in the natural sciences, Cambridge found itself taking on every sort of wartime research project that the government and industry wanted. Peace brought no relief. The atom and the cold war made even heavier demands on technical and...