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My Encounters With Abdus Salam

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My Encounters With Abdus Salam

Pervez Hoodbhoy

The year was 1972 and all the big guns of physics had turned up to
hear Professor Abdus Salam speak at a joint MIT-Harvard seminar. It was
rare for so many of the famous to come, but this was no ordinary seminar
and here was no ordinary speaker. Salam confidently navigated this arena,
the graveyard of many a bold idea, presenting his work and easily disposing
of the questions which followed. I understood little of what he said; as a
mere master’s student in physics, I was far too unknowledgable. After the
applause had died down and the seminar was over, I momentarily thought
about introducing myself but could not summon the courage.

My second encounter with Salam was no less daunting. I had just


finished my Ph.D. in nuclear physics and was visiting the International
Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Salam’s proud creation. One day
we happened to be in the same elevator. After introducing myself, I asked
him for advice on a physics matter that was occupying my mind then. “Go
read it in a book”, was his curt reply. I was mortified. People told me later
that asking him easy questions was looking for trouble.

It was not until many years later – 1984 to be precise – that I


approached Salam again. This time it was different. Perhaps he had
mellowed, or maybe I was slightly less ignorant now. I could now discuss
with him many issues, ranging from scientific ones to philosophy and
Pakistan’s scientific development. He didn’t insist that I always agree with
him, but clearly preferred that I did. One day he asked me if I would like to
co-author an article with him. I instantly accepted, feeling much honoured.

Strong, assertive, enthusiastic, vibrant, bluntly authoritarian, and with


a mind sharp as a razor’s edge, Abdus Salam was a most remarkable person.
Born in a lower middle-class family in a village near Jhang, he went to a
perfectly ordinary Urdu-medium school. One of his brothers, who now lives
in Islamabad, says that as a boy Salam had never seen an electric light until
one day he was told about it by somebody, at which point he was
wonderstruck. Subsequently, he was delighted to go to Lahore and have the
exquisite pleasure of studying under an electric light. An unsophisticated
home and environment notwithstanding, this child prodigy mastered his
studies and rapidly outpaced his teachers who recognised and respected the
young boy’s talent, and bore him no grudge.

Salam’s talent for physics and mathematics soon brought him fame
and recognition after he set off to England on a scholarship. In 1949 he
earned a first-class degree in physics from Cambridge University in just a
year. Then in 1950 he solved an important problem in renormalisation
theory and instantly became a minor celebrity. In 1951 he returned to
Government College, Lahore, but found to his disappointment that research
was not encouraged, even frowned upon. Without a library or colleagues to
talk to, he reluctantly went back to Britain in 1954.

By the early ’60s, Salam was already one of the world’s top particle
physicists with an enviable reputation in this most difficult and fundamental
area of science. In all he was to win 20 international prizes and honours.
Salam started to skilfully use his growing reputation to push his European
and American colleagues into supporting his dream of a major centre for
physicists from the developing world. With his unhappy period at
Government College at the back of his mind, Salam wanted a place where
third world physicists could practise the advanced science of the West
without being forced to become part of the brain drain, as he himself had
been. In 1964, supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Salam succeeded in setting up the ICTP in Trieste, Italy.

How great a scientist was Salam? This is an important question


because in our country one has to chart a delicate course between the Scylla
of adulation and hyperbole, and the Charybdis of stupidity and prejudice.
An honest answer is made still more unlikely because there is no community
of scientists in Pakistan which can understand and sensibly evaluate his
work.

The truth is that Abdus Salam was not Isaac Newton or Albert
Einstein or Richard Feynman; he never claimed otherwise and would have
felt deeply uncomfortable if someone else had claimed this for him. But his
achievement of unifying two basic forces of nature has had greater impact
upon the development of physics, and is deeper and more profound, than the
works of most other Nobel prize winners in this century. Today unification
theory is a touchstone of modern physics. Although it is not Salam’s only

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important work -- the full spectrum is much too broad to cover here -- it
certainly is his most important one.

It took me many years to appreciate the delicate complexity and


marvellous mathematical symmetry of Salam’s theory. It is difficult to
explain it in ordinary language for the reader. An analogy, however, may
help. Over a century ago the Scotsman, James Clerk Maxwell, showed that
the two apparently different phenomena of electricity and magnetism were
in fact just different facets of the same basic force, which he called the
electromagnetic force. Maxwell’s discovery led to an unending stream of
other discoveries, such as the existence of radio waves, which have had
profound consequences for human civilisation.

Somewhat similarly, Salam was able to show that two apparently very
different forces which govern nature have the same mathematical origin.
One is the electromagnetic force mentioned above. The other is the “weak
nuclear force” which, among other things, is that force which causes the sun
to convert its hydrogen into nuclear energy. Although there were suspicions
that the two were somehow related, nobody could pin-point in mathematical
terms the precise relation until Salam (from Trieste and London) and
Weinberg (from MIT), working independently of each other, came up with a
sound explanation almost simultaneously. Now called the electroweak
force, it has been tested in dozens of clever experiments and has passed with
flying colours in each. Today the search for the “Higgs” particle, predicted
by Salam, is considered the number one priority in the world of physics.
Billions of dollars continue to be spent on building accelerators with
energies high enough to produce this highly elusive particle. Its discovery
will be a key to understanding the universe in its early stages of birth.

What relation did Salam see between his work as a scientist and his
religious faith? Did he perceive the two to be inextricably intertwined? Or
did he see science as a secular activity which could comfortably go about its
own merry way?

Considerable confusion exists on this matter among admirers of


Salam. This is partly because many non-scientists wishfully look towards
Salam’s writings and speeches, reading into them what appears to support
their own beliefs, prejudices, and desires. Also confusing is the fact that
Salam, who was a believer not just by birth but also by conviction, often

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quoted profusely from the Holy Book in addressing lay audiences and
sometimes used religious symbolism in his descriptions of scientific
concepts and discoveries.

Several of Prof. Salam’s writings and speeches leave room for


ambiguity of interpretation. For example, in one of his important essays for
a popular audience, Salam refers to the concept of wahdat-ul-wajood while
discussing the unification of forces. Then, in a television interview he
speaks of how he was inspired into the concept of field symmetry by the
stately minars of Badshahi Mosque. I can remember attending a lecture that
Salam gave at General Talat Masud’s invitation in Wah (1987?). He talked
about the world being quite probably 11 dimensional, and then perhaps
hinted that 7 of these dimensions might belong to the ghaib. Time has
effaced the words from my memory, but I do recall feeling quite
uncomfortable. Being a rather simple person – simple-minded perhaps –
attempts to marry scientific discovery with spiritualism or religious
concepts always leave me very worried. Was this one such attempt?

If it was, then it could have scarcely come at a worse time. During the
Zia-ul-Haq years, every pseudo-scientist and crackpot in this country had
taken a shot at proving that all discoveries of science were to be found in
the Holy Quran. Some had made “discoveries” about the speed of a receding
Heaven, others estimated the temperature of Hell, and one even suggested
capturing Jinns to solve Pakistan’s energy problem. While they roundly
despised Salam for his Ahmedi faith, these scientific nonentities were
nonetheless delighted that they had found an ally in a Nobel Prize winner
who also believed in the unity of science and faith. Or so they thought.

Clarification became very important. Over the Zia-ul-Haq years, I had


written a book which emphasised the wholly secular character of modern
science, detailed absurdities of the so-called new “Islamic Science”, and
made the case that the long and glorious period of Muslim science was
ultimately terminated by the rise of an inflexible religious orthodoxy. Would
Professor Salam write a preface to this book and comment upon a viewpoint
that was so different from his? What was the relevance of his belief in
wahdat-ul-wajood given that Steven Weinberg, the co-discoverer of the
same Electroweak Unification theory, was an ex-Jew and a declared
atheist? I presumed that Salam would react against many parts of my book,

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although not the whole, but had suggested that his dissimilar views would
be welcome as a means to balance an otherwise one-sided analysis.

Professor Salam’s response left me pleasantly shocked. “I do not


disagree with anything that Dr. Hoodbhoy has written in this book”, he
wrote in the preface, and then went on to state in the clearest and most
unequivocal terms the irrelevance of religious beliefs to scientific discovery:
“Dr. Hoodbhoy quotes Steven Weinberg’s and my research and says that it
made no basic difference to our work whether I was an “avowed believer
and Weinberg an avowed atheist”. I can confirm that he is right. We were
both “geographically and ideologically remote from each other” when we
conceived the same theory of physics for unifying the weak and
electromagnetic forces. If there was any bias towards the unification
paradigm in my thinking, it was unconsciously motivated by my background
as a Muslim.”

Certainly, Salam’s integrity and intelligence did not permit his


beliefs, or matters of personal preference and ego, to determine the outcome
of his scientific work. The creator of Electroweak Unification never, for
example, claimed that this theory was the last word; he spent much of his
years after 1968 seeking routes for a more complete vision of physics. But
his religious beliefs and cultural background deeply influenced the course of
his life. These became more important as he grew older. Sometime in the
80’s he began signing himself as “Mohammed Abdus Salam”. At the one
level he sought peace, tranquillity, and inspiration, in contemplation and
prayer. He became persuaded that the Holy Quran demands man to seek
scientific truth, and that man has been uniquely empowered to solve the
deep mysteries of the universe. At another level, he became an inteprid
fighter for the cause of even those who would have nothing to do with him.

Intensely proud of the Muslim contributions to science and


civilisation, and upset at how they are usually forgotten or side-lined, Salam
would gently but eloquently admonish Western audiences for their
ignorance. Significantly, he began his Nobel Prize speech about the travel of
the Michael the Scot to Muslim Spain in the search for knowledge; in those
days the lands of Islam were the sole repositories of learning. Before
Muslim audiences he would make passionate exhortations that Muslims
should re-enter the world of science and technology before they became
utterly marginalized. Nothing hurt him more than the stony barrenness of

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the intellect in Islamic countries today. He was deeply mortified, he
recalled, when a Nobel Prize winner in physics said to him: “Salam, do you
really think we have an obligation to succour, aid, and keep alive those
nations who have never created or added an iota to man’s stock of
knowledge?”

Salam’s epoch-making achievements as a scientist stand in stark


contrast with his dismal failure to bring science back to Islam. It was not for
lack of trying, but nothing ever really worked. The Islamic Science
Foundation, a grand scheme for scientific advancement with an endowment
of $1 billion collected from oil-rich countries, came to nought after Salam
was banned from ever setting foot in Saudi Arabia. Kuwait and Iran did give
some money for supporting their scientists at the ICTP, but the amounts
were niggardly. Promises by kings, princes, and emirs remained promises.
Salam’s efforts did contribute towards creating at least some of the score or
so organisations whose raison d’etre is to accelerate science and technology
in Muslim countries. But these organisations provide nothing but cushy jobs
for those who sit at their helms, and they are no more than litter on the
landscape today.

Salam died on the 20th of November 1996. He was buried, according


to his request, in Pakistan. No minister or high government official attended
his funeral. For the Islamic world, deep in medieval slumber, it was a non-
event.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is professor of high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University,


Islamabad.

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