مسلمانوں کا نیوٹن ۔ ڈاکٹر عبدالسلام — Page 381
371 have them۔All the shouting and patting on the back of "our boys" doesn't mean a thing to me if it cannot be translated into a way of life for them۔" Like Constantine, Salam cannot be faulted for returning to the West۔The tragedy is that this kind of situation has persisted till today and many of the best and brightest Pakistani students of science immigrate to the US for want of adequate facilities or an intellectually stimulating environment۔This state of affairs also reflects the fact that government claims about supporting science and technology really only pertain to supporting things like nuclear weapons science and ballistic missile technology۔to It was during his second stint in England that Salam made his greatest contributions to physics۔By the 1930s physicists had realised that there were four fundamental forces in nature۔The most familiar among these are gravity and the electromagnetic force, both very apparent in daily life۔The other two are the weak and strong nuclear forces, both of which act only at very short ranges, less than a billionth of a millimetre۔The first of these is responsible for radioactive decay۔Through the work of a number of scientists in the 1960s, the possibility that the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force were closely related and could in fact be unified into one electroweak force۔Salam was an important contributor to this effort۔It was for their work on electroweak unification that Salam, along with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, was awarded the Nobel Prize۔While being deeply involved in such fundamental research, Salam also found time to be involved in developing science and technology in Pakistan۔In the words of Ishfaq Ahmad, formerly the chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Salam is "one of the main architects of whatever modern science exists in Pakistan today۔' He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of Pakistan and held this position from 1961 to 1974 when he resigned from this position۔" One suggested reason for this resignation has been his opposition to the nuclear weapons programme that was initiated by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto۔There may be a basis for that۔Salam was part of a larger movement within the scientific community that has been involved in raising awareness of the dangers stemming from nuclear weapons۔In 1988, Salam, along with 26 other eminent scientists, put out a public petition to free Mordechai Vanunu; Vanunu was an Israeli nuclear technician who was imprisoned for having publicised Israel's nuclear weapons programme۔There was, however, a more serious and tragic reason for his resignation۔Salam was a member of the Ahmadiyya sect and in September 1974 the Ahmadiyyas were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan۔This was a great blow for Salam personally but the harm may have been greater۔As Pervez Hoodbhoy explains, “1974 was the first step down the steep slippery slope, the bottom of which is not yet in sight۔More and more Islamic sects and communities are facing the threat of persecution and possible excommunication as the fires of religious extremism burn ever higher۔" The tragedy persists۔On this anniversary of his death, it would be fitting tribute to