A man of three worlds.Professor Abdus Salam was a man of three worlds, the world of Islam, the world of Theoretical Physics, and the world of International Co-operation. He was born in 1926 in Jhang Maghiana, a small town in what is now Pakistan. His family had a long tradition of piety and learning. His father worked in a poor farming district as an officer in the Department of Education. Abdus was always a clever and dedicated student. At the age of 14 he obtained the highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination, winning a scholarship to the Government College, Punjab University, in Lahore. That memorable day, when this young teen ager returned home, as always riding his bicycle, the whole town turned outside their homes to welcome him. This was his first important achievement. During his life he conquered a great deal of succes. He received his master's degree from the Government College in 1946.That same year, he was awarded a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge University, where he completed a BA degree with Double First-Class Honours in Mathematics and Physics in 1949. In 1950, he received the Smith's Prize from Cambridge University for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to Physics. He obtained several prizes and recognitions during his life. As a devout Muslim his religion was inseparable from his work and family all along his life. Abdus Salam has always been a prolific researcher in theoretical elementary particle physics, working harder than his collaborators for more than forty years, using his outstanding academic reputation to add weight to his active and influential participation in international scientific affairs, being very active in promoting scientific research in developing countries. His association with UN goes back to 1955, when he became Scientific Secretary to the Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. He was at the same time a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of USA and of USSR, a rare 'double-first' which demonstrates his important position in the world of Sciences. In 1978 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London. In 1979, for his theoretical unification of the two fundamental forces of nature, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. The money he received from the Atoms for Peace Medal and Award he spent on setting up a fund for young Pakistani physicists to visit the ICTP and he used his share of the Nobel Prize entirely for the benefit of physicists from developing countries and didn't spend a penny of it on himself or his family. On November 21st 1996 this extraordinary man died at the age of 70 in Oxford, England after a long illness. His body was returned to Pakistan and kept in Darul Ziafat, where some 13,000 men and women visited to pay their last respects. Some 30,000 people attended his funeral prayers. Abdus Salam was buried in the graveyard Bahishti Maqbara in Rabwah next to his parents' graves. |