Abdus Salam - The Miracle Scientist of Pakistan

Thanks for the article, Gill sahib. It was an absorbing read. no doubt, Salam was a great physicist. No one in their right mind can deny that. But he was not a Muslim but a Qadiani. That does not make him any less of a scientist but I think the point should be clarified. (It doesn`t make him any less of a pakistani either).

I loved the title of this article. Looking at Pakistan`s educational system, it is inded a miracle that an Abdus Salam came `to be`. Nature without nuture may easily self destruct. One can only speculate of future of Dr. Salam had he never ventured out of the boundaries of Pakistan. However, such `Moses` of intellect should be reverred and remembered for fate of next 100% Pakistan Nobel Laureate similar to Pakistan`s Nuclear capability. Long live memories of Dr. Salam.

I have just read the article. Thank you very much for sharing the information with us. I would like to share an incident here regarding the great scientist.

In the 1980s, a little girl met Dr Salam in a function. There, on her father`s behest, she walked up to him, and whispered something in his ear. Dr Salam smiled, bent down, and whispered something back. The girl walked back, content.

The girl had asked the Nobel Laureate if Pakistan possessed `the bomb` or `the capability` (or something to this effect, my memory fails me now). And he had replied in the affirmative.

Pakistan can never honour its heroes. Do such nations deserve to be even mentioned in the annals of history?

aslam644:

Thanks for providing the information regarding Salam`s second wife.

Mohammad Gill

romair&freethinker

about professor salam`s wife she is a white english woman lecturer at oxford university.

regards

Romair:

I do not have reliable information about Salam`s personal life; I didn`t know him from close quarters. He had two wives as I mentioned in the article. I had read it somewhere (most probably in Glashow`s book) that both of them accompanied him to the Nobel ceremony. I don`t know if one of them was white.

Curiously, his biographers have focused on his early and subsequent professional life only and have not described much about his family life. He himself didn`t say much either.

freethinker, what was the story with Salam and being married twice? Did he divorce a desi wife, and marry a gori? Did he have two wives? One keeps hearing this story............

Dear Interactors:

Although there are several interesting anecdotes about Salam, let me reproduce one in the following, at the risk of boring you. Salam said in one of his presentations:

I would like to interest my own children, as my father did. Regretfully, they do not listen to me. I tried to bring up my younger daughter as a physicist. She did do physics at school, and I remember in 1973, when we worked out the thory of proton decay, telling her that I thought the proton was unstable. Well, she went to her A level teacher telling her this was what her father said. The teacher said, ``My dear girl, whatever nonsense your father teaches you at home, don`t put it in the exam paper or you will fail.`` And she did fail. And then she took up literature.

Mohammad Gill

#38: I am with you on the point. I wanted to connect the dots.

ZahraJ:

Thank you for your interest in the article. I just wanted to say in my last post that Salam was a man of many parts. He had a deep feeling for the Muslim world. At the same time, he was dedicated to lift the third world countries from the backwardness in science and bring them into the society of the developed scientific world. He also collaborated with the developed world of science to keep his individual perspective at the forefront of the evolving science research. For this purpose, he brought the likes of Dirac and Heisenberg to the ICTP.

Mohammad Gill

[Salam was a man of the world, not in the material sense, but in the sense that he did not necessarily belong to one country; he was internationalist. He was born in the Muslim world but was a true member of the humanity at large. ]

Freethinker: Just being born in the muslim world is not enough for any man or woman to thrive. Being born in a muslim world that did not believe in any kind of freethinking, research and development, he obviously chose the better path. I think all muslims who believe in growing and not landing in intellectual loneliness have to think out of the box and be a strong believer of globalization.

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I dont understand why quadianis have this habit of making gods out of everyone that comes out prominent in their community. Zafarullah as incompetent he was is promoted as a demigod of foreign service. Dr. Abdus Salam is well respected in Pakistan by the people who understand physics and science. He is also hated by many because he practised and promoted a religion that promotes hate against one of the most dominant and prevalent religion in the world. There is no human being in the history who is totally loved or totally hated by everyone. Even Prophets had their enemies and even Sadam and Hitler had their friends who could sacrifice their lives for them, and did. In the history of Pakistan, Prof Abdus Salam has occupied his rightfully earned place and he will stay there as long as history is alive. The whining and propaganda using the name of a well respected scientist only widens the rift between two religions and communities. It is counter-productive and hateful. One doesn`t always need to use filthy and scornful language to spread hate - sometimes it can be done with subtlity and yet lethally.

Dear Interactors:

The first time I heard of Salam was in early 1950s from a friend of mine who is Ahmedi. He spoke very high of him and I thought he was exaggerating.

I went to Imperial College in 1968. A little earlier than 1968, I heard rumors that Salam had done some remarkable work in particle physics for which he might get a Nobel. Nobel is the ultimate measure of a scientist and the one whom we greatly cherish and respect, we consider him fit for the Nobel.

At that time, I was scared of particle physics and overawed by Einstein’s relativity. I wondered sometime why Salam was wasting his time doing particle physics; he should be doing relativity. I didn’t know much of physics at that time (not that I know a great deal now).

Gradually Salam became a subject of our almost daily discussion. There was another reason for that. Asghar Qadir at that time (1968- ) was a student at Imperial and was a friend who started living in the “digs” in my neighborhood. He broke “bread” with us (two other Pakistani graduate students at Imperial were living in my building) daily and would talk about Salam endlessly.

I finished my work at Imperial and returned to the daily chores of my professional life. When Salam won the Nobel for his work, I was simply enthralled. I started collecting material about him and his life. I didn’t know what I would do with it but at the bottom of my heart, I wanted to pay homage to Salam in some way.

Chowk provided the opportunity to me to do so and my piece on Salam was the fruit of my long devotion to him. Salam was a man of the world, not in the material sense, but in the sense that he did not necessarily belong to one country; he was internationalist. He was born in the Muslim world but was a true member of the humanity at large. He did so much for us and wanted to do so much more, that many of us are not even aware of it.

Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

``It is time to change the name of Gaddhafi Stadium to..... (Ras)

........Abdus Salam Stadium

Salam was definitely a great man, and a patriotic Pakistani. I wish I had a chance to meet him.

I have always found one aspect of Salam`s writings quite interesting. Though I haven`t read him in much detail. But do plan to. His combination of religion and science, and the non-conflicting manner in which he seems to be able to handle both, has always held great appeal to me.

His personality and ideas in this sense, contradict everything that individuals like Urstruly and hamidm write on this site, about these issues. He seems quite associated with Islam, much to the annoyance of ideas like Urstruly`s, who would consider him non-Muslim. And he seems to have been able to reach the highest levels of science and achievement, despite his regular mentioning and support of Islam, much to the annoyance of ideas like hamidm`s, who would consider Islam to be the biggest obstacle to individaul and social progress.

It`s funny that both these criticisms have not been expressed on this thread, by the above-named and like-minded individuals, though they get expressed so much everywhere else, by them. Apparently Dr. Salam carries a lot of power (and intimidation), even after his death..........