Some Indian readers have raised a valid concern about the ignorance and negligence on the part of Indian government and media when it comes to honouring national heroes such as Indian physicist, Satyendranathe Bose for his work with Albert Einstien in 1920s. However, their brethren across the border are no different — how many people in today’s Pakistan are aware that it was a Pakistani physicist, Dr Abdus Salam, who was at the forefront of theorising the particle in 60s-70s which (Higgs Boson) is known as the final piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics; a theoretical model explaining the fundamental particles and forces that control our universe. From 1959 onwards, Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg worked to mathematically prove this theorem. Salam was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979, along with his colleagues Glashow 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 04, 2012 was a historical day when the scientists announced the discovery of a particle called Higgs Boson (HB).
Abdus Salam, the only Pakistani to ever get a Nobel Prize, pioneered a number of projects in his homeland, Pakistan, which have now grown and 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 legacies. 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 this Trieste centre.
A road named after Dr Salam in CERN Geneva (where this Higgs Boson particle was discovered in the Large Harden Collider) shows the respect that the global scientists’ community has for him. It’s sad that we have forgotten our real heroes. We should perhaps pay heed to what a US president, Calvin Coolidge, once said: “A nation that forgets its heroes will itself soon be forgotten.”
MASOOD KHAN
Saudi Arabia