From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
December 02, 2005
Remembering
Professor Salam
Professor Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s
most distinguished scientist, did us all proud when
he won the Nobel Prize in 1979. Many of us were
almost in a state of ecstasy when we saw him impeccably
dressed up in a sherwani, shalwar and kulah and
receiving the coveted award from the Swedish king
at the glittering Stockholm ceremony. Yet, not many
of us are aware of his scientific legacy - the (UN)
International Center for Theoretical Physics - that
he founded and which is known today as the Abdus
Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics.
The Center made its debut in the historic city of
Trieste, Italy. Tucked away in the northeast of
Italy on the Adriatic Sea, Trieste stands on tree-dotted
hills resembling a sunlit sea-washed amphitheater,
with the surrounding Carso plateau rated as one
of the most enchanting landscapes in Europe. The
city used to be a small Roman town under the Caesars,
an independent municipality in the Middle Ages,
a flourishing international and trading center between
the West and the East after 1700, and an Italian
entity since 1918. It is a city of entrancing scenic
attractions. It has come to play a leading role
in a new enterprise: the promotion of physics, of
the scientific ethos, in the science-deficient developing
world.
More than 50,000 researchers from developed and
developing countries have made their pilgrimage
to the ICTP since its inception and have contributed
to the mainstream of physics, besides enriching
their own communities at home.
The discipline of physics, according to the late
Professor Abdus Salam, “is an incredibly rich
discipline ...a science of wealth creation par excellence”
because of its implicit connection with high technology
and materials exploitation. This view is widely
shared.
“As perhaps the most truly international of
all the sciences, physics has the opportunity and
the responsibility to continue this flow of benefits
to society, and, most important, to extend them
to the very large fraction of the world’s
burgeoning populations that have thus far - for
whatever reason - been denied them,” D. Allan
Bromley notes. (Bromley, Allan D., “The frontiers
of physics and their roles in society”, Physics
Scripta, Vol. 19, pp. 204-229, 1979).
The report “Physics in Perspective”
(US National Academy of Science, Washington, DC)
strengthens Salam and Bromley’s view: “Science
is knowing. What man knows about inanimate nature
is physics, or rather the most lasting and universal
things that he knows make up physics. As he gains
more knowledge, what would have appeared complicated
or capricious can be seen as essentially simple
and in a deep sense orderly. And, to understand
how things work is to see how, within environmental
constraints and the limitations of wisdom, better
to accommodate nature to man and man to nature.”
But the ICTP was conceived by Salam not so much
to create economic wealth in developing countries
as to enrich their intellectual stock. “Salam’s
strength is that he believes miracles are possible
provided one goes out and helps their way,”
Nigel Calder stated in 1967. Thus, Salam remained
unruffled when his proposal for the creation of
an international center for theoretical physics
got a polite rebuff in UN circles. Some comments
were particularly stinging: “Theoretical Physics
is the Rolls Royce of sciences - the developing
countries need only bullock carts.”
Reflecting on his sustained strivings to create
the center, Salam later recalled: “People
took it (proposal for ICTP) half-jokingly and many
delegations abstained on the vote when it was approved
for a preliminary study. I found out that the idea
interested the poor countries. What I wanted to
do was to give the poor a place of their own where
they would not have to beg anybody. Why should not
a bright youngster in Pakistan have the right to
receive the same stimulating atmosphere as an Englishman
or an American provided he deserves it?” Why
should a developing country scientist be confronted
with the cruel choice of either giving up physics
or the country?
Salam’s unrelenting campaign, later ably supported
by Italian professor Budinich, was eventually crowned
with success. In 1962, the General Conference of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved
the creation of the ICTP.
“That was the most momentous day of my life,”
Salam exuberantly declared. “I seldom smoke,
but I must have smoked 50 cigarettes that day and
I went through a kilo of grapes. At the end of the
debate, 60 hands went up in favor - and we had won.”
In 1964, the ICTP opened its doors at Trieste. It
was jointly sponsored by the IAEA and the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), and generously supported by the Italian
government and the hospitable Triestines.
Today, the ICTP serves as an important point of
convergence, a meeting place, for physicists of
all nationalities. It welcomes scientists from Africa,
Asia, North and South America, Europe and Australia.
For East European physicists, ICTP is one of the
only places in the world for effective collaboration
with the West. Salam thus succeeded in demonstrating
that various interactions of nations and cultures
are no obstacle to the brotherhood of man in science.
In the words of Professor John Ziman of Bristol
University, the distinguished Pakistani acted as
“a sort of one-man multinational corporation,
busily transferring intellectual technology to the
less developed countries of the world.”
Complimenting the visionary scientist, Nigel Calder
observed that Salam was to astonish the “ablest
men of his time and became a leader in theoretical
physics.... He was one of the wise men entrusted
by the United Nations with guiding the application
of science and technology to the global war on poverty.”
No wonder with Salam at the helm, the ICTP saw a
growing multiplicity in its programs. Gradually,
coverage broadened from fundamental physics to encompass
physics that could be more relevant to the needs
of the developing countries: for instance, physics
of materials and microprocessors, physics of energy,
physics of fusion, physics of reactors, physics
of solar and non-conventional energy, geophysics,
biophysics, neurophysics, laser physics, physics
of oceans and deserts, and systems analysis. But
the Center did not commit the blunder (which is
all too often committed in less-developed countries)
of neglecting basic frontier physics, such as high-energy
physics, astrophysics, quantum gravity, cosmology,
atomic and nuclear physics, and mathematics.
Such a broadening of the program was made simply
because there was not, and still is not, any other
international institute responding to the scientific
hunger of developing country physicists.
The effort proved rewarding. Ambassadors of various
countries who drove from Vienna to Trieste in May
1986 were pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm
and confidence among scientists working at ICTP.
Some acknowledged their easy access to current literature;
others spoke of the fruitful and intellectually
stimulating discussions they shared with co-researchers;
while some others mentioned a feeling of exhilaration
in interacting with top-notchers in their field.
A surprised ambassador exclaimed, “We are
used to listening to pessimists and egocentrics
when it comes to a dialogue with the scientific
community. The ICTP mood is certainly different.”
Twice - during 1986 and 1988-89 - I had the privilege
to render editorial services to the ICTP and the
Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) founded by
Dr Salam to foster science in developing countries.
Both the ICTP and the TWAS gave a singular fillip
to Third World science.
According to Dr Julian Cehla-Flores, a biophysicist
from Venezuela, the ICTP demonstrated “a successful
model of international cooperation not tried before,”
one which should be emulated in other fields of
science, but on a regional basis, particularly in
Third World settings. The transfer of information
at ICTP, he affirmed, is quick, a false start is
timely corrected, and the preprints of papers sent
to thousands of research centers all over the world,
are a single contribution to global research.
The floating population of scientists that passes
through the ICTP produces results “comparable
to the best centers of research in frontier sciences,
particularly in high-energy physics, condensed matter
physics, nuclear physics and plasma physics,”
he said. Thanks to Salam’s vision and enterprise,
the developing world has also contributed to the
developed world in the ICTP association. Some course
directors from developing countries - brilliant
academicians and men of erudition - have sharpened
the perception of participants from developed countries.
The ICTP, Dr Flores summed up, “has exceeded
the expectations of the founding fathers.”
True.
Dr Anis Alam, a physicist from Pakistan, described
the ICTP as “a second home for physicists”
where developing country scientists meet their peers
from the developed world with “the minimum
of restrictions.” To him, the Center is the
“only place in the world” where the
universal nature of science transcends geographical
and ideological frontiers.
A Nigerian mathematician felt that “information
exchange, focusing particularly on overviews of
major thrust lines of scientific theories, novel
developments, and new areas of concentration”
are of especially high quality. The Center has been
“the biggest boost to my endeavor to generate
self-consistent fields for biological phenomena.”
Dr Thomas W. Kephart, a physicist from the US, described
the ICTP as “a visionary enterprise now attaining
many of its goals. The research performance at the
Center and the conferences held are making a substantial
contribution to international physics,” he
conceded.
Dr Kephart was convinced that the scientist who
visits the Center “gains from both the scientific
and cultural experience independently of whether
he or she is from the East or West, North or South,
or from a developed or developing country.”
In his view, the effectiveness of, and interaction
between, scientists in the developed and developing
countries, as with any other human interaction,
demands effort by individuals. This effort is so
apparent at the Center and has resulted in many
rewards for all. Its congenial and intellectual
atmosphere provides opportunity, and “the
scientists who come from all parts of the world
are making the most of it,” he observed.
The ICTP created a stir when it emerged on the international
scene in 1964. It has been on the march since. Thanks
to the vision and enterprise of Professor Abdus
Salam, the Center has testified that the “Rolls
Royce” of physics, a pressing necessity of
the developed as well as the developing countries,
can be mastered by both. The ICTP has also demonstrated
the promise and strength of developing country science.
It stands as the unique legacy of a distinguished
Pakistani - a legacy that every Pakistani should
be proud of.
- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
