Abdus Salam

The deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze.

Prof. Dr. Abdus Salam (29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. He was the first Pakistani and the first scientist from an Islamic country to receive a Nobel Prize and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize, after Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

Quotes

• By generalization of methods developed by Kamefuchi, O'Raifeartaigh, and Salam, conditions for renormalizability of general gauge theories of massive vector mesons are derived. ... It is shown that all theories based on simple Lie groups (with the one exception of the neutral vector meson theory in interaction with a conserved current) are unrenormalizable.
  • (1 July 1962)"Renormalizability of Gauge Theories". Phys. Rev. 127.

• In the Holy Book of Islam, Allah says:
  
  "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, aweary."
  
  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.
  • Speech at the Nobel Banquet (10 December 1979).

• 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.
  • Address to UNESCO (1979), as published in Ideals and Realities: Selected Essays of Abdus Salam (1989), p. 251.

Quotes about Abdus Salam

• Pakistan might have put Salam’s face on a stamp but would not grant him his freedom of religion or [civil] rights, not even in death.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "Abdus Salam: Why 50 Years Ago a Future Nobel Prize Laureate Left His Native Pakistan in Protest", Bitter Winter (July 31, 2024)

External links

• Documentary Film on the Science and Life of Dr. Abdus Salam
• The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
• Abdus Salam bio on Nobel site
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979
• Abdus Salam CV
• Islam and Science: Concordance or Conflict?, speech delivered to UNESCO (27 April 1984)
• COMSATS Secretariat
• Biography of Abdus Salam by Imperial College colleague
• An Interesting And Detailed Article On the Life of Dr. Abdus Salam In Urdu
• PBS documentary on strings, contains clip of award ceremony with Abdus Salam
• Salam +50 Conference at Imperial College
• Contributions of Professor Abdus Salam as member of PAEC
• Pakistan shuns physicist linked to 'God particle' (Associated Press, 9 July 2012)