Abdus Salam

Pakistani theoretical physicist Abdus Salam shared a Nobel Prize of 1979 for helping to develop the theory of the electroweak force, unifying the electromagnetic force and the weak force, two of the four fundamental forces of nature.

This astrophysicist, also the first Muslim to win for his work, belonged to Ahmadiyya community. After Salam gained the highest marks ever recorded for the matriculation examination at the University of the Punjab and then cycled home from Lahore at the age of 14 years in 1940, the whole town turned to welcome him. He won a scholarship to government college, University of the Punjab, and took his Magister Artium in 1946. In the same year, he was awarded a scholarship to Saint John's College, Cambridge, where he took a BA (honours) with a double first in mathematics and physics in 1949. In 1950, he received the Smith's Prize from Cambridge University for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to physics. He also obtained a PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge; his thesis, published in 1951, contained fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics which had already gained him an international reputation.

Salam returned to Pakistan in 1951 to teach mathematics at Government College, Lahore, and in 1952 became head of the mathematics department of the Punjab University. To pursue a career of research in theoretical physics, he with no alternative at that time left his own country and worked abroad. Many years later, he succeeded in finding a way to solve the heartbreaking dilemma that many young and gifted theoretical physicists from developing countries faced.

At the ICTP, Trieste, which he created, he instituted the famous "associateships" which allowed deserving young physicists to spend their vacations in an invigorating atmosphere in close touch with their peers in research and with the leaders in their own field.

In 1954, Salam left his country for a lectureship at Cambridge, and since then has visited Pakistan as adviser on science policy. His work for Pakistan has, however, been far-reaching and influential. He was a founding member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, a member of the Scientific Commission of Pakistan and was Chief Scientific Adviser to the President from 1961 to 1974. Salam was also responsible for initiating research on water logging and salinity problems in Pakistan. He also played a critical role in agricultural research, PAEC and SUPARCO, the international space agency in Pakistan.

Since 1957 till his death, he was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London, and since 1964 combined this position with that of Director of the ICTP, Trieste.

For more than forty years he had been a prolific researcher in theoretical elementary particle physics. He had either pioneered or been associated with all the important developments in this field, maintaining a constant and fertile flow of brilliant ideas. For the past thirty years he used his academic reputation to add weight to his active and influential participation in international scientific affairs. He served on a number of United Nations committees concerned with the advancement of science and technology in developing countries.

Abdus Salam is known to be a devout Muslim, whose religion, inseparable from his work and family life, occupied not a separate compartment of his life. He once wrote: "The Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart."

After a long illness, Abdus Salam died in Oxford, England. People finally brought his body back to Pakistan, where thirteen thousand men and women visited to pay their last respects. Thirty thousand persons attended his funeral prayers.

Reference: biography by Miriam Lewis, now a