How many people in Pakistan are aware that it was a Pakistani physicist, Dr Abdus Salam, who was at the forefront of theorising the particle in the 1960s-70s, which (Higgs Boson) is known as the final piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics; a theoretical model leading to the fundamental particles and forces that control our universe? From 1959 onwards, Salam, Glasgow and Weinberg worked to mathematically prove this theorem. Salam was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979, along with his colleagues, Glasgow and Weinberg, for contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including inter alia, the prediction of weak neutral currents. July 4, 2012 was a historic day when the scientists announced the discovery of a theoretical particle called Higgs Boson (HB).
Abdus Salam, pioneered a number of projects in his homeland, Pakistan, which have now grown and are proving their immense worth. Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Sciences and Technology (PINSTech), and Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) are his living legends. He founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy; in 1979, ICTP was renamed after him. A lot of work on Higgs Boson was carried out in the Trieste Centre.
A road named after Dr Salam in CERN, Geneva, where the Higgs Boson particle was discovered in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), shows the respect for him from the world scientists’ community. It is sad that we have forgotten our real heroes; our heroes are now OBL, Mullah Omar, and Mehsud. Obviously, their impact on Pakistan needs no more comment. As President Calvin Coolidge said, “A nation that forgets its heroes will itself soon be forgotten.”
MASOOD KHAN,
Jeddah, July 15.