I like Cambridge a lot. It's a small town across the Charles River from Boston. The river is very accessible to people, dogs and other forms of life. The water is almost clean enough to swim in; a big improvement from the 1970s, thanks to the environmental standards that went into effect over the past twenty years.
Cambridge is small but eclectic in spirit, tolerant in manner, and academic in outlook. It's the home of Harvard and MIT - which have noticeable effect on the local zeitgeist (Yes, I know it's pretentious to use this word here; and in a variant form as well, but I can't help it). Cambridge is not just dominated by the universities - it's a real town with a diverse, working-class population: Portuguese, Greek, Haitian and Korean immigrants live and work here along with an interesting assortment of subcultures, alternative lifestyles, misfits, and rugged individuals.
And many famous people have lived here, transiently and otherwise. John Harvard, Nabokov, An Wang, W. E. B. DuBois, Al Gore, Al Drake, Norbet Weiner, H. W. Longfellow....Benazir Bhutto, Bill Gates
| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
| Cambridge TownOnline | |
| Photos of my neighborhood | Nabokov Links |
| The Head of the Charles | Nabokov's Cambridge Home |
| Nabokov A-Z | |
| Search Altavista - keyword "Nabokov" |
World War II started Cambridge's transformation into a technology town. The "Radiation Laboratory" (MIT Building 20), home to several Nobel Prize winners, developed radar and microwave technology that were keys to saving lives and winning the war. The British had a head start in radar (cavity magnetron) and sent people, ideas and samples to Cambridge. One of the major breakthroughs was the ability to amplify and generate centimeter waves rather than the meter-length ones initially used in England. This allowed much smaller structures for transmission and reception antennas.
The Cold War (~1950 - ~1990) continued the process. Charles Stark Draper Laboratories developed guidance systems crucial to accurate delivery of warheads and astronauts to their respective targets (Moscow and the Moon). Polaroid developed instant photography.
The 1970s were relatively slow in Cambridge. The pace of cold war was slowing: treaties were signed with Russia, the Apollo missions were tailing off, the post-Vietnam economy was drifting and oil price jumps caused a major recession. Japan, Inc. was the leading the way with fuel- efficient automobiles and television sets. Americans were beginning to lose confidence in their capability. The microprocessor, biotechnology and the Internet were yet to make an impact . But the precursors to an amazing renaissance were being developed in university laboratories around the world.
more to come....
Copyright 2000, David A. Cohen All rights reserved.