Ideals and Realities — Selected Essays of Abdus Salam

The following sections are included:

• Contents

• Editorial Note

• The Less-Developed World: How Can We be Optimists?

Here and there among the multitude of people who are concerned about the dreadful dilemmas facing the underdeveloped half of the world are a few men who speak with special authority. They are products of the unindustrialized world, they speak for it, but they have also excelled in the West’s own game of physical science. One of these men is Abdus Salam…

One summer noon in 1940, Abdus Salam came cycling into Jhang, a country town in the Punjab region of British India. The townspeople had lined the streets to greet him because, at the age of 14, he had just made the highest marks ever recorded in the matriculation examination of Panjab University. The result was a national sensation, but nowhere more than in Jhang, which had so little tradition in schooling…

Abdus Salam, in a lecture delivered last December to the students of the University of Stockholm, spoke with controlled anger of the exploitation of the third world by the advanced nations. Piling fact upon fact, finally he burst out passionately with these lines of Omar Khayyam:

Ah love! could thou and I with fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire

Would not we shatter it to bits – and then

Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire…

Mr. Vice-Chancellor

Only connect! That is the theme that runs through the life and work of Abdus Salam. He has followed the teaching of Islam and has dedicated his life to the principle of unity — the unity of Nature and the unity of Mankind. As a natural philosopher he has seen that the various interactions of the elementary particles must be no more than diverse aspects of a single primary force. As a political and moral leader he has demonstrated that the various interactions of nations and cultures are no obstacle to the brotherhood of Man in science…

Nine hundred years ago the great physician of Islam, Al Asuli, writing in distant Bokhara divided his pharmacopocia into two parts: “Diseases of the Rich” and “Diseases of the Poor”. If Al Asuli were alive today and could write about the afflictions of mankind I am sure he would again plan to divide his pharmacopocia into the same two parts. Half his treatise would speak of the one affliction of rich humanity — the psychosis of nuclear annihilation. The other half would be concerned with the one affliction of the poor — their hunger and near starvation. He might perhaps add that the two afflictions spring from a common cause — the excess of science in one case and the lack of science in the other…

I am deeply honoured and much appreciate the opportunity to give the first lecture in this series on Human, Global and Universal Problems, particularly just after the conclusion of one of the most momentous of special sessions of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with this subject. This session, as you all know, was convened to discuss the global crisis in the human family’s continuing and near-permanent polarization between the rich and the desperately poor and the latter’s demand for a New International Economic Order. I have looked forward to the opportunity of speaking to you today because I know that Sweden is one of the few countries of the world which has understood the issues; it is the ONLY country at present which is fulfilling the United Nations targets of aid. Its youths led the world in 1972 so far as global concerns go. My purpose today is to have a dialogue with you and to explore what are the ways in which the almost total incomprehension among the rich nations of what the poor are really demanding can be removed — and the urgency of the crisis mankind is facing brought home to developed societies…

I wish to begin by offering my sincerest thanks to my colleagues for the honour they have done me in electing me as General President. I feel doubly proud because our meeting takes place in this historic city of Dacca. In my experience there is no part of Pakistan where scholarship in its own right carries more esteem, and where a scholar receives more personal affection than East Pakistan. This unfortunately is a dying tradition elsewhere but one which lives in Dacca and I would like to begin by paying a tribute to this…

Five hundred years ago — around A.D. 1470 — Saif-ud-din Salman, a young astronomer from Kandhar working at the celebrated observatory of Ulugh Beg at Samarkand, wrote an anguished letter to his father. In words more eloquent than I could employ, Salman recounted the dilemmas, the heartbreaks, of an advanced research career in a poor, developing country:

Admonish me not, my beloved father, for forsaking you thus in your old age and sojourning here at Samarkand. It is not that I covet the musk-melons and the grapes and the pomegranates of Samarkand; it is not the shades of the orchards on the banks of Zar-Afsham that keep me here. I lost my native Kandhar and its tree-lined avenues even more and I pine to return. But forgive me, my exalted father, for my passion for knowledge. In Kandhar there are no scholars, no libraries, no quadrants, no astrolabes. My star-gazing excites nothing but ridicule and scorn. My countrymen care more for the glitter of the sword than for the quill of the scholar. In my own town I am a sad, a pathetic misfit…

The following sections are included:

• INTRODUCTION
  • There are three things wrong with Pakistan’s research effort in science and technology:
  • Small absolute size of science
  • Neglected development of the scientific effort in certain important spheres
  • Wrong location of our research effort
  • Isolation
  • Remedial measures — some guidelines
  • Administrative organization of Pakistan science

• SUMMARY

• APPENDIX STRUCTURE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL (for Basic Sciences) FROM THE OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE COUNCIL

• RESEARCH GRANTS SCHEME

To pursue physics research, even theoretical research, in a developing country, is a heartbreaking task. When I returned to Pakistan in 1951 after working at Cambridge and Princeton in particle physics, I could, in a country of 90 million, call on just one physicist who had ever worked with Dirac’s equations, for discussion, advice and stimulation. The most recent issues of the Physical Review available were dated just before the Second World War of 1939. There were no grants whatsoever for attending symposia or conferences; the only time I did attend a conference in the United Kingdom, I paid a year’s savings…

Your Majesties, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of my colleagues, Professors Glashow and Weinberg, I thank the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Academy of Sciences for the great honour and the courtesies extended to us, including the courtesy to me of being addressed in my language Urdu…

Science (meaning widespread dissemination of scientific knowledge and attitudes) and support for scientific institutions must precede the transfer of technology, Dr Abdus Salam insisted when I talked to this Nobel Prize winner in his sparsely furnished cubicle crammed with journals and papers in the Physics department of the Imperial College in London. On a blackboard, embedded in one wall, he had set out a seemingly abstruse formula. Despite the heights at which his intellect functions, the professor is down to earth and informal. “Let this interview be rambling,” he said. So, he ranged over the importance of basic science for the Third World, the arrogance of bureaucrats and lack of rulers with a vision. Yet all of these were strung on a single thread — what is it that frustrates science in the Third World? “The older I grow the more I feel amazed at the blindness of the developing world towards these really fundamental issues,” an exasperated Dr Salam said…

A number of groups have been working independently towards the project of setting up one or more world universities. That this is of importance in the context of the international future of mankind goes without saying. That at least one university did not come into existence at the same time as the United Nations organization did in 1945 is something of which the world’s academic community cannot feel proud. Recognising this, at its twenty-fourth session, in 1969, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the resolution 2573 (XXIV) inviting the Secretary-General to undertake a comprehensive expert study on the feasibility of an international university. In introducing this widely sponsored resolution, it was stated that “the establishment of an international university would satisfy the aspirations which were becoming apparent in all parts of the world and it would fulfill an obvious need”…

Mr. Chairman of the Board of Governors, Mr. Director General,

I cannot describe to you how honoured I feel by your very kind invitation for me to speak here today. As Scientific Secretary to the Geneva Conference in 1955, I witnessed the deliberations which led to the creation of IAEA and briefly as member of this Board in 1963, I had my first experience of how this Board wisely guides the Agency. Since 1964, Mr. Director General, I have had the privilege of working as a staff member of this great organization, as part of your team and under your dynamic and inspiring leadership…

I am deeply honoured and appreciate the opportunity given to me to speak to this distinguished audience today. For this, I am indebted to the Canadian Development Agency, the University of Ottawa and the Canprep Organization…

1. In 1945 Europe was devastated. Soon after, the United States took a remarkable initiative with the launching of the Marshall Plan to finance European recovery. Some 32 billion dollars were generously provided, amounting, in the beginning, to a contribution of around 2.79% of the Gross National Product of the USA. A magnificent act of magnanimity, it was not pure altruism, because the USA knew that by building up Europe, it was contributing to the future prosperity for the entire Western world, including enhanced prosperity of the United States itself, through trade and commerce. It is unfashionable nowadays to speak in these terms, but one may have called this act Keynesianism at its best, inspired by the earlier successes of the New Deal in the United States itself. One of the results of this all too rare act of economic wisdom was that during the next decades — the sixties and the seventies — after Western Europe was back on its feet, the prosperity of all countries — including the donor country of the USA — increased to levels unmatched in world history before…

Two years back in September 1960 the Pakistan delegation had the privilege to co-sponsor the first resolution requesting the Agency to create an International Centre for Theoretical Physics. During these two years the idea has progressed; firstly by the most generous financial offers from the Danish and the Italian Governments to help in setting up such a Centre and secondly by the enthusiastic support the idea has received from the world community of physicists. The panel of physicists which was convened by the Director General in March 1961 whose report was circulated to member Governments enthusiastically endorsed the idea of the Centre; they defined its scope and objective and discussed the manner in which it could be set up and run. I shall be referring frequently to the conclusions of this panel…

The idea of creating, under the aegis of the United Nations, an international centre for theoretical physics took shape five years ago. Some three years of hard persuasion at the forum of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna were needed to get it accepted and a further year was required to prepare for its inception in October 1964. The Centre has now completed its first academic year and it is time, perhaps, to assess how far the ideals which went into its creation have actually been realized…

Mr. Chairman of the Executive Board, Mr. President of the General Conference, Mr. Director-General, I cannot describe to you how honoured I feel by your very kind invitation to me to come here today and speak almost immediately after the award of the Prize, and also for the very, very kind words which both of you have said about me today…

Every year, some five hundred of the world’s brightest young minds in science are exposed to the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, a rather unusual United Nations institution on the Adriatic coast of Italy just outside Trieste. Most of these scientists come from developing countries and, under ordinary circumstances, they would be likely candidates for the brain drain…

Consider the following combination: an institution, which is located in a resort area, which is administered jointly by two inter-governmental organizations (each of which is several hundred kilometers distant), which employs four professional staff members (only two of whom are available for scientific counselling and planning), which would purport to be a major international centre dealing with nearly all disciplines in contemporary theoretical physics, which attempts in particular to aid physicists working in developing countries, and which maintains continuing contact with a network representing a major portion of the world physics community. The combination is indeed unlikely. And yet, a dozen years after its founding the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, which fits the description above, can justly lay claim to being a viable centre of physics which carries out an active programme in a number of fields involving a significant portion of the world’s physicists; the total number is around a thousand per annum, from some ninety developing and advanced countries…

Science flourishes only if it is supported by stable and independent sources of funds. It is a truism accepted in the West that society should provide as many different channels for the funding of science as possible. The wide variety of such funding sources is considered essential in order to ensure that if one source does not accept support, there is the possibility of another source being open. This is important for the acceptance of new, untried ideas, which may not appeal to all selectors. Furthermore, the different sources can each develop expertise for evaluating and judging projects in one or more speciality. Thus, if there are a multiplicity of foundations, one of these may specialise in agricultural projects, another on projects in energy, yet another on projects relating to training of scientists and so on…

I deeply appreciate the honour done to me by asking me to speak at this Symposium. Although what I have to say applies to many developing countries, including my own, I can say it with intense feeling here, and without fear of being misunderstood. This is because I can claim with you in Kuwait the kinship of Islam, which transcends all other kinships. For this I invoke Blessings of Allah on His Prophet…

The Holy Book places strong emphasis on the Al-Taffakur (science) and Al-Taskheer (technology), as bounden duties of a Muslim. Taking this and the realities of modern living, one of the prime requisites of the Umma in Islam is to encourage science education from the secondary, through tertiary, through university, up to the research level…

The following sections are included:

• Taffakur and Taskheer (Science and Technology)

• The Level of Scientific Creation in Islam

• The Present Picture of Sciences in Islamic Countries

• The New Gulf University

• The reasons for Muslim Pre-Eminence in Sciences before 1000 CE and for the Subsequent Decline

• Science Transfer and Technology Transfer

• Steps Needed to Excel in Sciences

• Conclusions

1. From the earliest times, man’s dream has been to comprehend the complexity of nature in terms of as few unifying concepts as possible. In this context, in the history of physics, three names stand together; those of Newton, Maxwell and Einstein, as among the greatest synthesisers and unifiers of all times. Newton, some three hundred years ago, identified and unified terrestrial gravity (the force which makes apples fall) with celestial gravity (the force which keeps planets in orbit around the sun). Maxwell, two hundred years later, unified the forces of electricity and magnetism. He further showed that light was one manifestation of this unification. Einstein, in 1905, unified the concepts of space and time. Eleven years later, he could show that Newton’s gravity was a manifestation of this audacious unification in the sense that Newtonian gravity signified a curvature of the united space-time manifold. The question which Einstein then asked was this: Could Maxwell’s electromagnetism be united with Newtonian gravity in the same way that Maxwell had united electricity and magnetism. If so; was Maxwell’s electromagnetism also a manifestation of some other geometrical property of the space-time manifold; just as Newtonian gravity was a manifestation of its curvature. This was Einstein’s last dream, about which I have been asked to speak today. In 1979, it appears that Einstein’s was a very valid dream and there is progress towards its realization, which I am sure he would have rejoiced to see…

1. All science — physics in particular — is concerned with discovering WHY things happen as they do. The WHYS so adduced must clearly be “deeper”, more universal, more axiomatic, less susceptible to direct experimental testing, than the immediate phenomena we seek to explain. And it is also well-known, that it is the WHYS of one generation which are often the points of departure for the next, to whom the earlier WHYS can appear subjective, conditioned by “unscientific” thinking, even wrong. The glory of science is that this notwithstanding, we often arrive at correct predictions — at least to the extent of the experimental accuracies achievable and often better. I wish to speak about this continuing, ever-sharpening process about the WHYS of physics in the context of the fundamental unification of physical forces on which our generation is engaged…

In June 1938, Sir George Thomson, then Professor of Physics at Imperial College, London, delivered his 1937 Nobel Lecture. Speaking of Alfred Nobel, he said: “The idealism which permeated his character led him to …(being) as much concerned with helping science as a whole, as individual scientists … The Swedish people under the leadership of the Royal Family and through the medium of the Royal Academy of Sciences have made Nobel Prizes one of the chief causes of the growth of the prestige of science in the eyes of the world … As a recipient of Nobel’s generosity, I owe sincerest thanks to them as well as to him.”…

The following sections are included:

• REFERENCES

• BIODATA