Abdus Salam

Pakistani physicist

• Born: January 29, 1926; Santokdas, British India (now Pakistan)
• Died: November 21, 1996; Oxford, England

Twentieth-century theoretical physicist Muhammad Abdus Salam became the first Muslim scientist to win a Nobel Prize in 1979 for his codevelopment of a theory unifying electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces. Salam was also involved in Pakistan’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb.

Also known as: Muhammad Abdus Salam; Mohammad Abdus Salam

Primary field: Physics

Specialties: Theoretical physics; electromagnetism; nuclear physics

Early Life

Abdus Salam was born in the village of Santokdas in British India on January 29, 1926. Although his father was a teacher living in the Punjabi town of Jhang, his mother followed tradition and went to Santokdas, where her own father was posted, to give birth to her first child, Abdus Salam. He would have six brothers and two sisters.

The name Abdus Salam is single phrase meaning “servant of God (Allah), who is peace.” Despite his objections, Westerners commonly used Salam as his last name. It was not until 1974 that Abdus Salam chose the first name of Muhammad.

Abdus Salam grew up in a devout Ahmadi Muslim family who encouraged learning. At age fourteen, Abdus Salam received the highest score recorded for the entrance examination of the University of the Punjab in Lahore. He was awarded a scholarship to attend that university’s Government College.

He published his first paper in 1943 as an undergraduate, proposing solutions for mathematical problems set by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920). In 1944, Abdus Salam earned his bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from Government College. Two years later, he received his master of arts in mathematics there.

In 1946, Abdus Salam received a scholarship to attend St. John’s College at Cambridge University in England. From there, in 1949, Abdus Salam graduated with a bachelor of arts in mathematics and physics with highest honors in both majors.

Entering the PhD program, Abdus Salam discovered he had neither patience with nor enjoyment in physics experiments and moved to theoretical physics. In 1950, Abdus Salam received the Smith’s Prize from Cambridge University for his predoctoral work.

Abdus Salam published his PhD thesis, featuring work in quantum electrodynamics, in 1951. He returned home to the newly formed nation of Pakistan to teach mathematics at Government College. In 1952, he was awarded his PhD in theoretical physics from Cambridge.

Life’s Work

In Pakistan, Abdus Salam was made head of the Mathematics Department at the University of the Punjab in 1952. His administrative and teaching duties left him almost no time for research. Feeling isolated as a scientist and under threat of violence as an Ahmadi, Abdus Salam left Pakistan in 1954. He became a lecturer at St. John’s College.

In 1956, Abdus Salam discovered neutrino parity violation. However, doubts raised by Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli led Abdus Salam to delay publication of his theory until 1957. By then, he had been scooped by Chinese American theoretical physicists Chen Ning Franklin Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee.

Abdus Salam began to develop a mathematical solution to unify both electromagnetic force and weak nuclear force, two of the four fundamental forces known to physics in the 1950s. In 1957, he was appointed professor of applied mathematics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. Two years later, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1960, he became professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College.

In addition to his professorship in London, Abdus Salam became chief scientific adviser to Pakistan’s president, Ayub Khan, in 1961. There, Abdus Salam was instrumental in invigorating work at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and was a founder of Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) on September 16, 1961.

At Imperial College, Abdus Salam worked on his theory to unify the two physical forces. He began an exchange with two American theoretical physicists, Sheldon Lee Glashow and Steven Weinberg, who were pursuing the same idea in the United States. In 1963, Abdus Salam published his theories about the vector meson, a subatomic particle.

In 1964, Abdus Salam founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. With this, he realized his dream to create an institution where international theoretical physicists, particularly from developing countries, could meet and engage in intellectual interchange. Abdus Salam served as director from 1964 to 1993 and as president from 1994 to 1996.

Abdus Salam served as Pakistan’s delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1963 to 1964. At this time, he was also instrumental in convincing the United States to provide Pakistan with a small uranium nuclear research reactor. It went live under Abdus Salam’s supervision in Nilore, near Islamabad, Pakistan, in 1965.

By 1966, Abdus Salam had combined his own theory for the unification of the electromagnetic with the weak nuclear force with that Glashow had developed. In 1967, Abdus Salam completed the mathematical proof of their electroweak theory, which was published in 1968.

After the December 1971 war between India and Pakistan, which Pakistan lost, Abdus Salam attended the secret Multan meeting held by Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on January 20, 1972, to discuss nuclear arms for Pakistan. There, it was decided to build a Pakistani atomic bomb. To further this end, Abdus Salam founded the Theoretical Physics Group of the PAEC in 1972.

Back in England, Abdus Salam began collaboration with Indian-born American theoretical physicist Jogesh Chandra Pati. Together, they pursued the quest to develop a grand unified theory combining all four known fundamental forces in physics. In 1974, they published their Pati–Salam model. The model proposes a theory that adds an additional fourth “color” to describe different quarks, with this fourth color representing leptons.

In March 1974, Abdus Salam and Pakistani nuclear engineer Munir Ahmad Khan established the secret organization known as the Wah Group of Scientists, whose duty was to build an atomic bomb for Pakistan. On September 7, 1974, the Pakistani parliament declared that the Ahmadi sect was non-Muslim. In response, Abdus Salam took the first name Muhammad and grew out his beard to show his allegiance to Islam.

In England, Abdus Salam looked into theories for the possible existence of supersymmetry in particle physics. In 1978, he received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. He also accompanied a secret Pakistani science mission to China to establish nuclear cooperation.

In 1979, Abdus Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg received the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded for their joint and independent contributions to establish a theory that unified the electromagnetic and weak nuclear force.

Throughout the 1980s, Abdus Salam combined his research in theoretical physics with strong advocacy to establish research institutions for theoretical scientists from developing countries. In 1983, Abdus Salam established the Third World Academy of Sciences in Trieste. This was followed by his creation of the Third World Network of Scientific Organizations, also in Trieste, in 1988.

The onset of progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative neural condition, forced Abdus Salam to relinquish directorship of the ICTP in Trieste in 1994. He also exchanged his professorship at Imperial College for the position of senior research fellow.

Abdus Salam kept his private life confidential. With his first wife, whom he married before returning to England in 1954, he had three daughters and one son. With his second wife, British biochemist Louise Napier Johnson, he had a son and a daughter. Abdus Salam died on November 21, 1996, in Oxford, of Parkinson’s disease. He was buried alongside his parents in Rabwah, Pakistan.

Impact

Throughout his scientific career, Abdus Salam focused on theoretical physics and issues in nuclear physics. He was also a tireless advocate and creator of influential international institutes fostering scientific interchange among scientists, particularly theoretical physicists, in developing countries.

For his achievements in theoretical physics, Abdus Salam received many honors. Outstanding among them is the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics he shared with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg. In his successful professional life, he received honorary doctorates from over forty universities.

Abdus Salam’s creation and long stewardship of the ICTP was recognized in 1997, when it was renamed the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. To date, about five thousand scientists have attended this center every year. Since its inception in 1964, more than half of the 125,000 scientists who spent research time at the center have come from developing countries, demonstrating the success of Abdus Salam’s dedication to bring such scientists out of often-isolated professional lives.

Abdus Salam’s contributions to Pakistan’s creation of nuclear weapons has been controversial. He saw this development as necessary counterweight to the existing nuclear weapons of India.

Pakistan’s official rejection of his Ahmadi faith as being non-Muslim deeply hurt Abdus Salam. Even though he left the country in protest in 1974, he continued to feel loyalty for his native land, which he expressed by fostering the work of Pakistani scientists abroad. He also supported them in the international scientific community, especially at the ICTP and its later associated institutions. Sadly, his grave in Pakistan has been repeatedly vandalized by those who begrudge his Ahmadi faith.

Bibliography

Duff, Michael, ed. Proceedings of the Salam + 50 Conference. July 7, 2007, Imperial College London. London: Imperial College, 2008. Print. Conference held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Abdus Salam’s appointment at the college. Introduces Abdus Salam’s ideas in theoretical physics, recollects his colleagues’ scientific work with him, and emphasizes his humanitarian role. Section on his personal life includes essays by his daughter and his grandson.

Ellis, John, et al., eds. The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting. November 1997, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Singapore: World Scientific, 1999. Print. A collection of scientific articles covering such cutting-edge theories as superstrings. Conference commemorated the tenth anniversary of the death of Abdus Salam.

Fraser, Gordon. Cosmic Anger: Abdus Salam—The First Muslim Nobel Scientist. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print. Perceptive and sympathetic biography of Abdus Salam, focusing on his scientific achievements and his struggle with Pakistani authorities, especially in light of religious discrimination against his Ahmadi faith. Portrays Abdus Salam as deeply committed to ending the isolation of scientists in developing countries.