Daily Times

Initially, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) focused only on Theoretical Physics but after a decade, a wider range was included with emphasis on branches of physics more relevant to the needs of the developing countries. The physics of condensed matter, plasma physics, the physics of the oceans and the earth, applicable mathematics; physics of technology, of natural resources were some of those subjects. In his interview to Dr Robert Walgate in 1976 for the reputed magazine New Scientist, Dr Salam said, “We do post PhD work, not with an eye to industrial laboratories — there are none in most of our countries — but the hope is that if you have teachers in the universities who have worked, for example, in solid state physics, then the next generation at least will have an orientation which is much more industrial.”

In its new strategic plan, the ICTP announced three new research areas it will pursue in fields related to existing ones, which could have significant interdisciplinary research potential, especially in their possible impact on developing countries. Those fields are energy and sustainability, quantitative biology, and computing sciences.

Dr Walgate described Dr Salam as “…a passionate advocate for the Third World who has the heart of a poet and the mind of a scientist.” This was the genius who shared his enormous intellectual energy between the pursuit of quarks and a passionate advocacy of Third World needs. Quoting Dr Salam’s lecture in December 1975 to the students of the University of Stockholm he wrote, “He spoke with controlled anger of the exploitation of the Third World by the advanced nations. Piling fact upon fact, finally he burst out passionately with these lines of Omar Khayyam:

“Ah love! could thou and I with fate conspire/To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire/Would not we shatter it to bits and then/Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”

Dr Walgate futher wrote, “He loves beauty and looks for it in his science. He is an excellent physicist concerned with deep pattern; he is also a deeply compassionate man. These two threads intertwine through his life.” This aspect of his life kept him engaged in another stream of his commitments and that was his love for the United Nations and Atoms for Peace programme. He attended the first Atoms for Peace conference in 1955, and helped set up the UN Advisory Committee for Science and Technology, of which he was an active member from 1963 to 1975.

Besides building strong institutions for his motherland and for the scientists from the Third World countries, Dr Salam had also contributed to strengthening and expansion of institutions in the UK. In 1956, he had become the founder of the Theoretical Physics Group in an institution no less than the prestigious Imperial College of London. The college is placed among the list of top ranking institutions of the world and credited with producing the highest numbers of Nobel laureates. Building on the auspicious foundations of Dr Salam, the group is considered one of the leading and most exciting entities on Theoretical Physics and maintains its position at the forefront of a number of different areas of Theoretical Physics.

Here, Dr Salam’s especial significance has been recognised by the creation of an Abdus Salam Professorship, currently held by Professor Michael Duff. Dr Salam was initially appointed to the chair of Mathematical Physics at the Imperial College in 1956, in the Department of Mathematics. He brought Paul Matthews with him as a Reader. Together, they created this group. Academic visitors included many of the leading academics in the field including these world-renowned scientists: Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg, Stanley Mandelstam, Ken Johnson, Susume Kamefuchi, Sidney Bludman, and many others.

Within a short time span, the group rapidly attracted a large number of PhD students, and it also developed, with others in the Mathematics Department, a one-year postgraduate course, which became the MSc course on Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces and as one of the leading courses on the subject, it attracts large numbers of students from around the world.

Dr Salam used his diplomatic skills not only to forge support for his country and for building institutions across the world, he did not let go of opportunities to reconcile the traditional conflict between religion and science. The Muslim world owes it to him for putting across to the world power and guidance from the Quran for opening vistas of wisdom.

For Dr Salam, religion did not occupy a separate compartment of his life; it was inseparable from his work and family 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.”

Dr Salam was devoted to his religion, his motherland and his passion for physics. He had faith and confidence in what he believed in along with the strength and courage to live with these dimensions successfully. He was proud of his country and religion and that is the reason why on the grand occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize, he asked for special permission to wear a Pakistani outfit, spoke in his language and quoted verses from the Holy Quran, highlighting principles for scientists. In his address, Dr Salam quoted from the Quran: “Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection, Return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure. Then Return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze, Comes back to thee dazzled, a weary.”

This in effect is the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze. His faith helped him unlock the mysteries of nature. Dr Salam did so many things simultaneously, juggling with problems of physics, motherland, Third World countries, this world and the hereafter, and he was able to do this brilliantly. New Scientist in its December 1976 issue wrote: “Dr Salam is a man with tremendous enthusiasm — but he is one man without time, strung across two worlds and two problems. It is a loss to the world that he cannot have two lives.” In my view, Dr Abdus Salam strung in at least seven worlds and lived seven lives simultaneously.

(Concluded)

The writer is a freelance columnist