Dr Abdus Salam, a very renowned personality, became Pakistan’s first scientist and Muslim’s first Nobel Prize winner. In 1964 he helped establish Trieste, Italy, as the International Center for Theoretical Physics, to assist physicists from nations of the Third World. Before his demise, he worked as the director of the institution.
Salam stood out in the city of Jhang, then a portion of British India, straight from his birth in 1926. His dad, a professor, thought that the birth of Salam was the result of God’s vision during the prayers of Friday and, as he grew up, He was considered to be a superior of his sisters and siblings, excused from schoolwork, such as cow-dressing, toilet cleaning, and collected time for his outstanding mathematical skills. His infancy, however, was not particularly luxurious. It was the first time he saw an electric light when he left his hometown to go to the university in Lahore’s government.
He is distinguished from his peers by Salam’s maths and physics talents. He received a scholarship for his education in Cambridge, where he was one of the few South Asian sides at that time at St John’s College. But the pull was strong: after receiving a PhD from Cambridge, he went to Lahore to serve as a mathematics professor.
Dr Abdus Salam Religion:
Even while his religious beliefs were profoundly important to him, they were also a cause of tremendous suffering for him, as a result of the way his specific branch of Islam, the Ahmadiyya Muslims, has been handled in Pakistan. The Ahmadiyya movement was founded in Punjab, British India, in 1889 by Imam Ahmad. Among Ahmadi Muslims, they believe that their founder, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, is the long-awaited Mahdi and Messiah of Israel. Other Muslims, on the other hand, are not convinced, and instead think that they are still waiting for him. Ahmadi Imam Adeel Shah, who lives in London, states, “The Ahmadiyya Muslim Society is a peaceful, caring community that upholds the law.” “However, it has been subjected to different kinds of persecution and prejudice, particularly in Pakistan,” says the author.
Even though his religious beliefs were deeply important to him, they were also a source of great suffering for him, as a result of the way his particular sect of Islam, the Ahmadiyya Muslims, have been treated in Pakistan. Founded in Punjab, British India, the Ahmadiyya movement began in 1889. They believe that Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of their sect, is the long-awaited Mahdi and Messiah of the world. Many Muslim leaders, however, are not in agreement, believing instead that they are still waiting for him.
According to Adeel Shah, an Ahmadi Imam who is based in London, “the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a law-abiding, loving community.” “However, it has been exposed to different kinds of persecution and prejudice, particularly in Pakistan.
Salam chose to leave Pakistan in 1953, following the uprisings. He returned a couple of years to Cambridge, where he helped establish up the theoretical physics department before transferring to Imperial College in London.
He did not allow Pakistan to go, despite his rejection from his native nation, where he has still been participating in the most famous research initiatives in the country. He set up Pakistan’s space programmes in 1961 and Salam, controversially, was engaged in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons construction activities in the early 1970s. But once the 1974 law against Ahmadiyya Muslims came into force, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto finally engaged Salam with the administration of the country.
Dr Abdus Salam Nobel prize:
When Abdus Salam was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1979, it was just five years after a legislation in Pakistan declared him to be a non-Muslim. This was the first time a Pakistani had received the award. To the rest of the world, he was the first Muslim to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work. However, he was not regarded as such by his own nation.
Salam’s gravestone was initially engraved as the “first Muslim Nobel laureate” in Rabwah, but subsequently local authorities deleted the adjective “Muslim” from the inscription. Thaver says that they decided to put in the title of their documentary a copy of this defect, because “therein in lay the story, the irony and the tragedy.” “The simple word ‘Muslim’ was whitened in honor of the first Muslim scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize. It’s the greatest insult to the most famous son of the earth.”
Abdus Salam awards:
Apart from the Nobel Prize that Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg shared the 1979 in Physics for their contributions to the theory of unified weak and electromagnetic interactions between elementary particles, which included the prediction of the weak neutral current (WNC). Salam has won many civil and scientific prizes worldwide. “Salam has received the highest civil honours from the President of Pakistan – the Star of Pakistan (1959) and the Nishan-e Imtiaz (1979)” To honour Salam’s life and achievements, the National Center for Physics (NCP) has an Abdus Salam Museum.
Abdus salam books:
Goodreads has 341 reviews of Abdus Salam’s books, and he has 21 books. The book Unification of Fundamental Forces: The First 1988 Dirac Memori… is Abdus Salam’s most popular publication.
Dr Abdus salam education:
Salam early developed a reputation for exceptional intellect and academic success across Punjab and subsequently at the University of Cambridge. At the age of 14, Salam achieved the best scores for the matriculation (entrance) test at the University of Punjab. He received a full scholarship from Lahore University Government College, Punjab State. Salam was a versatile scholar interested in Urdu literature and English with which he excelled. He travelled to study in Bombay after a month in Lahore. He came back to Lahore in 1947.
But he quickly took mathematics as his focus. Salam’s mentor and tutors encouraged him to be a teacher of English, but Salam chose to stick to math. As a student of the fourth year in 1944, he published his work on Srinivasa Ramanujan’s mathematical difficulties and obtained his B.A. in mathematics. His dad urged him to join the civil service of India (ICS).
The ICS was the greatest ambition in those days for young college graduates and government employees in civic society. Salam attempted for the Indian Railways but did not qualify for the service since he failed the medical ocular testing, in accordance with his dad’s desire. The findings determined further that Salam had failed a mechanical exam that railway engineers needed to get the railway commission and was too young to compete for the job.
The Railways thus denied Salam’s application for work. While in Lahore, Salam attended the Government College University’s graduate school. In 1946, he earned his MA in Mathematics from the University of Government College. That same year, he received an award for a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1949. In 1950, he won the Smith’s Prize for the most excellent pre-doctoral contribution to physics from Cambridge University.
After completing his degree, Fred Hoyle suggested that Salam spend another year researching experimental physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, but Salam did not have any tolerance for lengthy experiments in the laboratory. Salam returned to Jhang and extended his bursary and went to the UK for a PhD.
He received his doctorate in theoretical physics from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where he now works. A thorough and important study in quantum electrodynamics was included inside his doctorate thesis, which was titled “Developments in quantum theory of fields.” By the time it was released in 1951, he had already established an international name for himself and had been awarded the Adams Prize for fiction. During his doctorate studies, his professors pushed him to solve an intractable issue in one year, a subject that had previously stumped such luminaries as Paul Dirac and Richard Feynman. He succeeded.
Salam had discovered a solution to the renormalization of meson theory within six months of starting his research. The Cavendish Laboratory was abuzz with excitement when Salam offered a solution, attracting the attention of Hans Bethe, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Paul Dirac.
Abdus Salam Services:
Salam returned to Lahore in 1951, where he worked as a Professor of Mathematics at the Government College University, where he stayed until his retirement in 1954. Upon graduation from the University of the Punjab, he was hired as a professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics. Salam worked in the latter role to bring the university curriculum up to date, offering a course in quantum mechanics as a part of the undergraduate curriculum in 2012. Salam, on the other hand, chose to teach an evening course in Quantum Mechanics outside of the normal curriculum when the Vice-Chancellor rescinded his earlier decision.
Despite Salam’s mixed reception at the institution, he was appointed to oversee the education of students who had been especially affected by his teachings. Thus, Riazuddin was the only Salam student to have the honour of studying under him at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Lahore, as well as at the post-doctoral level at Cambridge University as a consequence of this incident.
As a result of significant resistance from his colleagues, Salam was unable to establish a research centre in Lahore in 1953. He was elected to the Pakistan Academy of Sciences’ fellowship in 1954 and was one of the organization’s founding fellows. A consequence of the riots in Lahore in 1953, Salam moved to Cambridge. He became a member of St John’s College and was appointed professor of mathematics in 1954. When he was asked to join the faculty at Imperial College, London, he accepted. He then collaborated with Paul Matthews to establish the Department of Theoretical Physics at the university. Over time, this department developed into one of the most renowned research departments in the country, with faculty members like as Steven Weinberg, Tom Kibble, Gerald Guralnik, C. Robert Hagen, Riazuddin, and John Ward among those who contributed to the field’s advancement.
Salam was awarded an honorary degree by Punjab University in 1957 in recognition of his contributions to particle physics research. Salam started a scholarship programme for his pupils in Pakistan the next year, with the assistance of his mentor, in the same year. Salam maintained close ties with Pakistan and returned to the nation on a number of occasions. He established a group of theoretical physicists at Cambridge and Imperial College, the bulk of whom were Pakistani students who had come to Cambridge to study with him. Salam was one of the youngest members of the Royal Society (FRS) when he was elected in 1959 at the age of 33, making him one of the society’s youngest members.
During his fellowship at Princeton University in 1959, Salam had the opportunity to meet J. Robert Oppenheimer, with whom he discussed his neutrino research and gave a presentation on his findings. It was decided that the basis of electrodynamics, difficulties, and their solution would be addressed with Oppenheimer. Jean Buckley was a devoted personal assistant who worked tirelessly on his behalf. When Salam joined the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences in 1980, he was designated as a foreign fellow of the institution.
