By Zubair Khan

Photographie: Abdullah Adeel

Pictures

Land of pure, its leaders as well masses have shunned and vilified Dr. Salaam. Even Pakistan history has been mitigated to denounce this great man of the Pakistani soil.  However still there are some loyal organisations, entities and sons of soil who feel their moral obligation to celebrate and remember the life, times and work of the greatest physicist this country has ever had. Various ways and means are utilised to highlight the noble and prestigious work done by this great scientist.  Outside Pakistan, Ahmadiyya Community Bensheim Germany stands at forefronts and misses no chance to honour the work of this great scientist. In 2010 a memorable function was organised to remember this great personality and now on 1st of March 2013 again in German City of Bensheim the Ahamdiyya Community organised a colour ful event to remember this great son of Pakistani soil.  Mr Bilal Aslam along with Mr Fareed Khalid and Wasim Ghaffar were the main force to keep Dr Salaam event rolling.Lord Mayor of the city Mr Thorsten Herman in his welcome address praised Ahmadiyya Community a lot for organising such wonderful educational event. Being the main speaker, Prof Dr Tom Kibble of Imperial College UK, in his hour long lecture traced his connections to Dr Salaam which started back in 1959. He gave a wonderful explanation and linkage of the work done by Dr Salaam and how it paved the way to the recent discovery of Higgs Boson particle. Very amicably he explained the symmetries and gauge theories. He claimed that Dr Salaam was convinced from the very early stage that unified is a gauge theory and his subsequent thesis were also based on gauge theories.

Dr Mansoora Shamim, who for more than 4 years is engaged in CERN traced here motivation to become a scientist to the book written about Dr Sal am. As per her statement one year course at ICTP Italy changed her vision and now she feels proud to be the member of learned scientists team. During her short lecture she quoted numerous quotations of Holy Quran where research about the mysteries of universe has been mentioned. She concluded her speech on the prophecy of founder of Ahamdiyya community in which it was prophesied that members of the community will excel in the field of education and cited the living example of Dr Salam as fulfillment of this prophecy.

Prof Dr Achim Stahl, who came from Aachen University of Germany, with the help of diagrams and pictures explained what Higgs Boson particle is and what significance it can bring when the discovery will be completed from various angles. He informed the audience in next couple of weeks an other big conference of scientists is coming up and more good news about higgs boson might be waiting in pipe line. At the end of the lectures participants asked lot many questions which showed the interest of the audience.

For the information of current and coming generations few achievements of this great Pakistani legend, Dr Salam, in his field are enumerated. Salaam was a science advisor to the Government of Pakistan from 1960 to 1974, a position from which he played a major and influential role in Pakistan’s science infrastructure.Salam was responsible for not only major development and contribution in theoretical and particle physics, but as well as promoting scientific research at maximum level in Pakistan. Salaam was the founding director of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) in Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). As Science Advisor, Salam played an integral role in Pakistan’s development of peaceful use of nuclear energy, and directed the research on development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972 for this, he is viewed as the “scientific father”of this programme in the views of the scientists who researched under his scientific umbrella. In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya denomination as non-Islamic. Even after his death, Salam remained one of the most influential scientists in his country. In 1998, following the country’s nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of “Scientists of Pakistan”, to honour the services of Salam. Salam’s major and notable achievements include the Pati–Salam model, magnetic photon, vector meson, Grand Unified Theory, work on super symmetry and, most importantly, electroweak theory, for which he was awarded the most prestigious award in Physics – the Nobel Prize. Salam made a major contribution in Quantum Field Theory and advancement of Mathematics at Imperial College London. Salam heavily contributed to the rise of Pakistani physics to the Physics community in the world. Even until his death, Salam continued to contribute to physics and tirelessly advocated for the development of science in Third-World countries.  In 1997, the scientists at ICPT commemorated Salam and renamed ICTP as “Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics“. Salam had advocated for development of Science in third world countries, and attended various seminars in different countries. Throughout the years, Salam served on a number of United Nations committees concerning science and technology in developing countries. Salam also founded the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and was a leading figure in the creation of a number of international centres dedicated to the advancement of science and technology.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.