My Encounters With Abdus Salam
My Encounters With Abdus Salam
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.
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.
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.
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?
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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.
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.
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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.
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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?”