109 Facts About Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory.

Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani and the first Muslim from an Islamic country to receive a Nobel Prize in science and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize, after Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

Abdus Salam contributed to numerous developments in theoretical and particle physics in Pakistan.

Abdus Salam was the founding director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group.

In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Parliament of Pakistan passed unanimously a parliamentary bill declaring members of the Ahmadiyya Kufriya community, to which Salam belonged, non-Muslims.

Abdus Salam made a major contribution in quantum field theory and in the advancement of Mathematics at Imperial College London.

Abdus Salam heavily contributed to the rise of Pakistani physics within the global physics community.

Up until shortly before his death, Abdus Salam continued to contribute to physics, and to advocate for the development of science in third-world countries.

Abdus Salam was born in a Muslim Arain family to Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain and Hajira Hussain in Jhang, into a Punjabi Muslim Arain family that was part of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam.

Abdus Salam's grandfather, Gul Muhammad, was a religious scholar as well as a physician, while his father was an education officer in the Department of Education of Punjab State in a poor farming district.

At age 14, Abdus Salam scored the highest marks ever recorded for the matriculation examination at the Punjab University.

Abdus Salam won a full scholarship to the Government College University of Lahore, Punjab State, British India.

Abdus Salam was a versatile scholar, interested in Urdu and English literature in which he excelled.

Abdus Salam's father wanted him to join the Indian Civil Service.

The results further concluded that Abdus Salam failed a mechanical test required by railway engineers to gain a commission in the Railways, and that he was too young to compete for the job.

Abdus Salam received his MA in Mathematics from the Government College University in 1946.

Abdus Salam returned to Jhang and renewed his scholarship and returned to the United Kingdom to do his doctorate.

Abdus Salam obtained a PhD degree in theoretical physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.

However, this initiative was reverted by the Vice-Chancellor, and Abdus Salam decided to teach an evening course in Quantum Mechanics outside the regular curriculum.

In 1953, Abdus Salam was unable to establish a research institute in Lahore, as he faced strong opposition from his peers.

In 1954, Abdus Salam took fellowship and became one of the earliest fellows of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.

Abdus Salam retained strong links with Pakistan, and visited his country from time to time.

At age 33, Abdus Salam became one of the youngest persons to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959.

Oppenheimer and Abdus Salam discussed the foundation of electrodynamics, problems and their solution.

In 1980, Abdus Salam became a foreign fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.

Early in his career, Abdus Salam made an important and significant contribution in quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, including its extension into particle and nuclear physics.

Abdus Salam had played an influential role in the advancement of nuclear physics, but he maintained and dedicated himself to mathematics and theoretical physics and focused Pakistan to do more research in theoretical physics.

Abdus Salam had a prolific research career in theoretical and high-energy physics.

Abdus Salam later passed his work to Riazuddin, who made pioneering contributions in neutrinos.

Abdus Salam introduced the massive Higgs bosons to the theory of the Standard Model, where he later predicted the existence of proton decay.

In 1963, Abdus Salam published his theoretical work on the vector meson.

In 1961, Abdus Salam began to work with John Clive Ward on symmetries and electroweak unification.

Abdus Salam was convinced that all the elementary particle interactions are actually the gauge interactions.

In 1968, together with Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam formulated the mathematical concept of their work.

In 1968, together with Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam finally formulated the mathematical concept of their work.

In 1966, Abdus Salam carried out pioneering work on a hypothetical particle.

Abdus Salam showed the possible electromagnetic interaction between the Magnetic monopole and the C-violation, thus he formulated the magnetic photon.

Abdus Salam provided a mathematical postulation for the interaction between the Higgs boson and the electroweak symmetry theory.

In 1972, Abdus Salam began to work with Indian-American theoretical physicist Jogesh Pati.

Abdus Salam suggested to Pati that there should be some deep reason why the protons and electrons are so different and yet carry equal but opposite electric charge.

Abdus Salam had worked on the unification of these forces from 1959 with Glashow and Weinberg.

Abdus Salam provided a theory that shows the unification of two fundamental forces of nature, weak nuclear forces and the electromagnetic forces, one into another.

In 1967, Abdus Salam proved the electroweak unification theory mathematically, and finally published the papers.

Abdus Salam took the Nobel Prize medal to the house of his former professor, Anilendra Ganguly, who taught him at the Sanatan Dharma College in Lahore, and placed the medal around his neck, stating "Mr Anilendra Ganguly this medal is a result of your teaching and love of mathematics that you instilled in me".

Abdus Salam returned to Pakistan in 1960 to take charge of a government post given to him by President Ayub Khan.

Abdus Salam replaced Salimuzzaman Siddiqui as the Science Advisor, and became first Member of PAEC.

Abdus Salam expanded the web of physics research and development in Pakistan by sending more than 500 scientists abroad.

In 1967, Abdus Salam became a central and administrative figure to lead the research in Theoretical and Particle physics.

Abdus Salam moved PAEC Headquarters to a bigger building, and established research laboratories all over the country.

In October 1961, Abdus Salam travelled to the United States and signed a space co-operation agreement between Pakistan and US.

Abdus Salam played an influential and significant role in Pakistan's development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Khan was the first person in the IAEA that Abdus Salam had consulted about the establishment of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, a research physics institution, in Trieste, Italy.

At IAEA, Abdus Salam had advocated the importance of nuclear power plants in his country.

Also in 1965, led by Abdus Salam, the United States and Pakistan signed an agreement in which the US provided Pakistan with a small research reactor.

Abdus Salam had a long-held dream to establish a research institute in Pakistan, which he had advocated for on many occasions.

In early 1961, Abdus Salam approached President Khan to lay the foundations of Pakistan's first executive agency to co-ordinate space research.

Abdus Salam immediately travelled to the United States, where he signed a space co-operation agreement with the US Government.

In 1964, while in the US Abdus Salam visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and met with nuclear engineers Salim Mehmud and Tariq Mustafa.

Abdus Salam signed another agreement with the NASA which launched a programme to provide training to Pakistan's scientists and engineers.

Abdus Salam knew the importance of nuclear technology in Pakistan, for civilian and peaceful purposes.

But, according to his biographers, Abdus Salam played an ambiguous role in Pakistan's own atomic bomb project.

In 1973, Abdus Salam proposed the idea of establishing an annual college to promote scientific activities in the country to the Chairman of PAEC, Munir Khan, who accepted and fully supported the idea.

In November 1971, Abdus Salam met with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his residence, and following Bhutto's advice, went to the United States to avoid the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Abdus Salam travelled to the US and returned to Pakistan with scientific literature about the Manhattan Project, and calculations involving atomic bombs.

Abdus Salam immediately started to motivate and invite scientists to begin work with PAEC in the development of fission weapons.

In 1972, Abdus Salam formed the Mathematical Physics Group, under Raziuddin Siddiqui, that was charged, with TPG, with carrying out research in the theory of simultaneity during the detonation process, and the mathematics involved in the theory of nuclear fission.

Abdus Salam was there and Muhammad Hafeez Qureshi was appointed head of the Directorate of Technical Development in PAEC.

Abdus Salam remained associated with the nuclear weapons programme until mid-1974, when he left the country after Ahmadi were declared non-Muslims by the Pakistani Parliament.

In spite of this, Abdus Salam maintained close relations with the theoretical physics division at PAEC who kept him informed about the status of the calculations needed to calculate the performance of the atomic bomb, according to Norman Dombey.

In 1964, Abdus Salam founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, in Italy and served as its director until 1993.

Abdus Salam founded the Third World Academy of Sciences and was a leading figure in the creation of a number of international centres dedicated to the advancement of science and technology.

Abdus Salam was a firm believer that "scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind", and that developing nations needed to help themselves, and invest in their own scientists to boost development and reduce the gap between the Global South and the Global North, thus contributing to a more peaceful world.

In 1981, Abdus Salam became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

Abdus Salam continued inviting Pakistan's scientists to ICTP, and maintained a research programme for them.

Abdus Salam was a very private individual, who kept his public and personal lives quite separate.

Abdus Salam married twice; first time to a cousin, the second time as well in accordance with Islamic law.

Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim, who saw his religion as a fundamental part of his scientific work.

Abdus Salam died on 21 November 1996 at the age of 70 in Oxford, England, from progressive supranuclear palsy.

Abdus Salam's body was returned to Pakistan and kept in Darul Ziafat, where some 13,000 men and women visited to pay their last respects.

Abdus Salam was buried in Bahishti Maqbara, a cemetery established by the Ahmadiyya Community at Rabwah, Punjab, Pakistan, next to his parents' graves.

Abdus Salam's craving for nationalism is symbolized best by his wish to be buried in his own homeland.

Abdus Salam is remembered by his peers and students as the "father of Pakistan's school of Theoretical Physics" as well as Pakistan's science.

Abdus Salam was a charismatic and iconic figure, a symbol among them of what they were working or researching toward in their fields.

Abdus Salam founded the Space Research Commission of and was its first director.

The Abdus Salam Chair was established in his honour at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering in the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Abdus Salam made a significant contribution towards the 2012 success in the search for the Higgs boson.

Abdus Salam has been commemorated by noted and prominent Pakistani scientists, who were his students.

When Dr Abdus Salam was to deliver a lecture, the hall would be packed and although the subject was Particle Physics, his manner and eloquence was such as if he was talking about literature.

Abdus Salam would give a patient hearing to everyone including those who were talking nonsense.

Abdus Salam treated everyone with respect and compassion and never belittled or offended anyone.

Dr Abdus Salam's strength was that he could "sift jewels from the sand".

Dr Abdus Salam was responsible for sending about 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists from Pakistan, for PhD's to the best institutions in UK and USA.

My last meeting with Abdus Salam was only three months ago.

Abdus Salam's disease had taken its toll and he was unable to talk.

Dr Abdus Salam had deep love for Pakistan in spite of the fact that he was treated unfairly and indifferently by his own country.

However, Abdus Salam's legacy is often ignored in the Pakistani education system despite his achievements.

In 2020, a group of students belonging to the State Youth Parliament desecrated an image of Abdus Salam that was present at a college in Gujranwala, while chanting slogans against the Ahmadiyya community.

Abdus Salam's rich and busy life was an endless quest for symmetry, that he pursued in the universe of physical laws and in the world of human beings.

Abdus Salam was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1979, and the American Philosophical Society in 1992.

Abdus Salam's services have been recognised in Pakistan, as his students have openly spoken and stressed the importance of Science and Technology in Pakistan.

For Dr Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi, a persecuted minority in Pakistan, and his faith rather than his towering achievements was the yardstick by which he was judged.

In 1979, Abdus Salam was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Glashow and Weinberg, For their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current.

Abdus Salam received high civil and science awards from all over the world.

The National Center for Physics contains an Abdus Salam Museum dedicated to the life of Salam and his work as he discovered and formulated the Electroweak Theory.

The Abdus Salam Award is an award established to recognise high achievements and contributions in physical and natural sciences.

In 1979, Riazuddin, Fayyazuddin and Asghar Qadir met with Abdus Salam, and presented the idea of creating an award to appreciate scientists, resident in Pakistan, in their respective fields.

Abdus Salam donated the money he had won as he felt that he had no right use for the prize money.

The Abdus Salam Medal is presented by the Third World Academy of Sciences in Trieste, Italy.

Abdus Salam's primary focus was research on the physics of elementary particles.