SALAM, Muhammad Abdus Vol1 v1

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SALAM_MUHAMMAD_ABDUS_Vol1_v1

NATIONAL CATALOGUING UNIT FOR THE ARCHIVES OF CONTEMPORARY SCIENTISTS Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Muhammad Abdus Salam KBE FRS (1926-1996) Volume 1 General introduction Section A: Biographical Section B: Research Section C: Imperial College, London NCUACS catalogue no. 99/4/01 by Lizzie Richmond, Paul Newman and Peter Harper Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Muhammad Abdus Salam KBE FRS (1926-1996) Volume 1 General introduction Section A: Biographical Section B: Research Section C: Imperial College, London NCUACS catalogue no. 99/4/01 by Lizzie Richmond, Paul Newman and Peter Harper Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 Title: Compiled by: Description level: Fonds Date of material: 1939-2000 Lizzie Richmond, Paul Newman and Peter Harper Extent of material: 351 boxes, ca 10006 items Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Muhammad Abdus Salam, KBE FRS (1926-1996), theoretical physicist NCUACS catalogue no.99/4/01 © 2001 National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath. Reference code: Not applicable Deposited in: The Library, ICTP, Trieste, Italy Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 The compilation and production of this catalogue was made possible by a grant from The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THIS COLLECTION MAY YET BE AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION. ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO: FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS TRIESTE THE LIBRARIAN THE ABDUS SALAM INTERNATIONAL CENTRE ITALY Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 LIST OF CONTENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL SECTION B RESEARCH A.1-A.871 B.1-B.303 SECTION C IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON SECTION D INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THEORETICAL D.1-D.2122 PHYSICS E.1-E.875 G.1-G.315 H.1-H.320 J.1-J.1885 SECTION F LECTURES AND BROADCASTS F.1-F.449 SECTION E MANUSCRIPTS AND PUBLICATIONS SECTION H SOCIETIES AND ORGANISATIONS SECTION G UN ORGANISATIONS K.1-K.660 SCIENCE AND THE ARABIC AND ISLAMIC WORLD THIRD WORLD AND DEVELOPMENT SECTION J VISITS AND CONFERENCES SECTION K SECTION L Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 SECTION M PAKISTAN M.1-M.478 SECTIONN PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS N.1-N.1280 SECTIONO REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 0.1-0.351 INDEX OF CORRESPONDENTS Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 GENERAL INTRODUCTION PROVENANCE The papers were received from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy in July 1996 with additions on various dates between 1997 and 2001. OUTLINE OF THE CAREER OF ABDUS SALAM Abdus Salam was born on 29 January 1926. He was brought up in the small town of Jhang, in the Punjab, then part of British India, now in Pakistan. His father, Choudhary Muhammad Hussain, was a teacher and minor educational official whose family (Salam had one sister and six brothers) lived in a two-room house with no electricity or running water. Salam's talent for learning and original thought showed at an early age. When he was fourteen he won a scholarship to Government College, Lahore and his first paper, on the solution of a set of simultaneous non-linear algebraic equations, was published during his fourth year of study. Wilkinson, more difficult, he graduated with a double first in 1949. H. After a short visit to Pakistan Salam approached N. Kemmer and asked to be taken on as his research student in theoretical physics. Kemmer had another research student at the time, P. T. Cambridge. During his first two years at St John's College he studied mathematics but he had already In 1946 Salam was awarded a special Punjab Government scholarship to the University of decided to go into theoretical physics and on the advice of his tutor, F. Hoyle, he spent his remaining year studying physics. Although he found experimental physics, under the supervision of D. Matthews, and suggested that he might have some problems left over that Salam could tackle. last until Matthews’ death in 1987. theory. Salam found a solution very quickly and consequently won the Smith's Prize for the best Salam as a physicist of international importance and resulted in a friendly collaboration which was to predoctoral work in physics at Cambridge. He joined Matthews at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, USA, where they continued to study renormalization theory. Their work helped to establish Matthews asked Salam to look at a gap in F. J. Dyson's recently formulated proof of renormalization Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 Despite being offered a permanent position at Princeton, on the expiry of his extended scholarship, Salam returned to Pakistan where he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at both Punjab University and Government College, Lahore. By the end of 1953, however, the practical impossibility of conducting advanced scientific research in a developing country and worsening political agitation against the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam to which he belonged had combined to make Salam increasingly unhappy. In January 1954 he left Pakistan to take up the post of Lecturer and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge where he resumed his research work concentrating particularly on dispersion relations. In January 1957 Salam joined Imperial College, London, as Professor of Applied Mathematics and by doing so became the first Asian to hold a chair in a science faculty at any British university. He transferred departments in 1960 to become Professor of Theoretical Physics and, with Matthews, continued to work on fundamental field theory. Salam maintained close links with Pakistan and remained convinced that the successful development of Third World countries was largely dependent on fostering their scientific and technological capacity. In 1961 Salam was appointed (part-time) Scientific Adviser to President Ayub Khan. He subsequently established the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Committee (SUPARCO) and founded the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) as well as research centres for wheat and rice. His attempts to tackle the increasingly urgent problem of salinity and waterlogging When Ayub Khan was replaced as President by Yahya Khan in 1968, Salam's influence was diminished but he retained his post until 1974 when President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared the Ahmadiyya non-Muslim. Salam resigned in protest. proposed as too costly to implement and after 1965, with the outbreak of war between Pakistan and India, it became difficult to get governmental support for any scientific project not linked to defence. Salam's experiences in Pakistan had made him determined to do all he could to improve the position of scientists in Third World countries. He conceived the idea of a centre of excellence to which in order to stay in touch with current research while remaining for most of the year in their own caused by irrigation were, however, less successful. The government rejected the measures he guidance ICTP survived financial hardship and political crisis, and flourished. Centre from its foundation until 1993, dividing his time equally between London and Trieste. Under his Physics (ICTP) was officially inaugurated in Trieste, Italy, in 1964. In 1968 ICTP moved to a new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and, with the additional financial backing of UNESCO and building on the outskirts of the city which offered room for expansion. Salam was the director of the scientists from developing nations could come on a regular basis for visits of a few weeks or months countries. Through persuasiveness and persistence Salam eventually won the support of the the Italian government and the assistance of P. Budinich, the International Centre for Theoretical Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 Salam's doctoral thesis, submitted in 1952, set out his early original work on quantum electrodynamics and served as the basis for his later scientific career. At Imperial College, during the late 1950s, Salam and Matthews superintended the creation of one of the leading centres of research in fundamental theoretical physics. Quantum field theory with particular emphasis on the long-term goal of finding a unified approach to the fundamental forces at work in the worlds of nuclear and sub- nuclear physics remained the main focus of Salam's research work. In the 1960s Salam was closely involved with attempts to construct a theoretically coherent account of the ‘strong’ interactions that bind together the constituents of nuclei. A sustained programme of research culminated in his construction of a theory that unified the electromagnetic force with the 'weak' nuclear force responsible for the radioactive decay of elementary particles. This critical theoretical development formed the central component of what became known as the 'standard model’ of the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. For his contribution to this discovery, confirmed by experiments carried out at CERN in 1973, Salam was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979. During his final years Salam's research branched out in new directions to encompass condensed-matter physics, biology and the origin of chirality. Salam was a member of numerous international committees. He served as Scientific Secretary of the Geneva Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1955 and 1958 and chaired the UN Advisory Committee on Science and Technology in 1971-1972. He also chaired the UNESCO Advisory Panel on Science, Technology and Society in 1981. He was a member of the South Commission and of the Scientific Council of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. and a daughter by his second wife, Louise Johnson FRS. Salam died at his home in Oxford on 21 November 1996. was awarded an honorary KBE in 1989. four academies and institutes. He received a huge number of prizes and awards including the Atoms 1990. Salam was elected as the Royal Society's youngest Fellow, at the age of thirty-three, in 1959. He won the Society's Hughes Medal in 1964, Royal Medal in 1978 and Copley Medal in 1990. Salam for Peace Award in 1968, the first Edinburgh Medal in 1989 and the Catalunya International Prize in Salam received forty-five honorary degrees from twenty-eight countries and was a member of twenty- Kibble, Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 44, 385-401 (1998). difficult but which did not finally prevent him from working and travelling until the early 1990s. He married twice. He had one son and three daughters by his first wife, Amtul Hafeez Begum, and a son In the mid-1980s Salam developed a degenerative neuronal disease which made his life increasingly For further information on Salam's scientific work see 'Muhammad Abdus Salam, KBE' by T. W. B. Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION The material is presented in the order given in the contents list. It covers the period from 1939 to 2000. Additional explanatory notes, information and cross-references are appended where appropriate to the separate sections, sub-sections and individual entries in the body of the catalogue. The following paragraphs are intended only to draw attention to items which may be of particular interest. Section A, Biographical, is extensive in its coverage of Salam's career, honours and awards. It ranges from documentation of Salam's first appointment as a lecturer at the University of Cambridge to correspondence relating to the award of his KBE. Most of the awards, prizes, fellowships and honorary degrees that Salam received between 1954 and 1996 are represented. Important material concerning the Nobel Prize appears here. There is also material relating to Salam's unsuccessful candidacy for the Directorship of UNESCO in 1987. A large number of press cuttings and magazine articles on Salam collected and retained at ICTP are presented in this section. Carefully drafted ‘proposals' and memoranda recording Salam's (personal) views on international scientific co- operation and the development of the Third World can also be found here. correspondence covers the period 1950-1992. It comprises exchanges with colleagues and friends on a broad range of research-related subjects retained by Salam as ‘Physicists’ Letters’. Section B, Research, presents notebooks, research notes and scientific correspondence covering the period 1939-1993. The notebooks document Salam's research from undergraduate and postgraduate studies undertaken at Cambridge and Princeton through notes for lectures delivered to students at imperial College to less structured notes on work carried out at ICTP. Research notes and early drafts of scientific papers form a separate sequence within this section. These include material relating to work on chirality conducted by Salam during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The scientific material documenting Salam's official communications with the International Atomic Energy Agency concerning the history and development of ICTP is included in this section. There are sequences of Section D, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, is the most substantial in the catalogue. It contains material relating to all aspects of the organisation and management of ICTP between 1960 of the Centre are grouped together. A useful collection of papers, publications and reference works Section C, Imperial College, London, is very slight. It contains a small amount of material relating to Salam's administrative and academic duties at Imperial College. and 1996. Papers documenting Salam's duties and career as Director, and subsequently President, Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 (IAEA) and UNESCO, and general ICTP administrative and funding issues. The material relating to the design and implementation of the Centre's scientific programmes is useful though not comprehensive. There is a large group of papers described at ICTP as 'Country Files' relating to the initiation and maintenance of ICTP links with academic institutions and international centres of study outside Trieste. There are also papers and correspondence relating to the Centre's fellowship and associateship schemes. Material documenting meetings and conferences held at the Centre is presented here. Section E, Manuscripts and publications, presents diverse documentation of Salam's scientific and non-scientific output. The largest component of this material was described by Salam as ‘manuscripts’. It consists of a collection of notes and drafts by Salam and publications by others dating from the early 1950s to 1989 which may relate to the preparation of Salam's published papers and lectures. In addition there is significant documentation, covering the period 1975-1995, relating to a number of Salam's major published works on both scientific and Third World development topics which is arranged by title. Ideals and Realities, a collection of essays on various developmental issues, Notes on Science, Technology and Science Education in the Development of the South, a report for the South Commission widely distributed as 'The Red Book’, and the First Dirac Memorial documenting Salam's lectures and broadcasts between 1951 prints of Salam's papers published between 1943 and 1993 are presented in this section. Section F, Lectures and broadcasts, contains material relating to scientific and non-scientific lectures, speeches and broadcasts delivered by Salam. There is an incomplete numbered chronological Lecture published by Cambridge University Press are all represented here. The section also contains correspondence concerning the administrative work associated with the distribution of printed correspondence with journals and periodicals concerning Salam‘s contributions and the translation of sequence of speeches covering the period 1961-1993 and some additional and overlapping material some of Salam's publications into languages other than English. Two sequences of numbered off- versions of some lectures and speeches is included here. The section also contains a large number In 1974 a number of specialising in branches of science such as genetic engineering and biotechnology, and pure and organisations. These include UNESCO, the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and of transparencies which appear to have been produced by Salam to illustrate some of his later the United Nations University (UNU). There are papers relating to the international centres applied chemistry which Salam helped to establish with UNIDO support. and 1989. A small amount of UN organisations, documents Salam's association with various Section G, lectures. United Nations Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 prominent scientists joined an international protest against anti-Israeli policies recently adopted by UNESCO. ICTP was effected by the resulting boycott of all UNESCO-funded bodies. A small amount of material relating to Salam's management of this difficult situation is included here. Section H, Societies and organisations, presents material relating to Salam's involvement with a large number of international, national, regional and local organisations and societies. Some of these organisations, such as the European Physical Society are purely scientific in their scope and activities. In addition many, such as the African Union of Physics, the Arab Academy of Sciences and the Centro Internacional de Fisica, Bogota, reflect Salam's strong connections with the Third World. Other organisations, such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies demonstrate Salam's commitment to world peace and the promotion of science as a means of advancing development. There is a small amount of material relating to Salam's interest in the UK High Energy Particle Physics Review Group chaired by Sir John Kendrew. Section J, Visits and conferences, covers the period 1956-1997 and is substantial. It is presented in two main sequences, invitations accepted and invitations not accepted. It contains documentation, Section K, Third world and development, comprises documentation of Salam's deep interest in the sources and religious freedom. They took place all over the world. Material relating to many of the numerous meetings on science and Third World development to which Salam contributed is most of the conferences, meetings and seminars to which Salam was invited. Conferences attended scientific and developmental advance of Third World countries. It contains material relating to a presented here. There is also documentation of longer visits, sometimes involving extended trips to several different countries. A small number of miscellaneous conferences attended by Salam but not often consisting of correspondence relating to travel arrangements, programmes and proceedings, of by Salam cover topics ranging from high energy physics and science education to alternative energy after his death is included here. very small amount of material relating to the administration of Salam's Third World science prizes 1987-1996. Correspondence and papers concerning the Fund for Physics, which Salam set up to establishment of the Third World Academy of Sciences of which Salam was President from 1983 to provide financial assistance to young scientists based in the Third World, appear in this section. A included in the main sequence of such material are grouped separately within this section. number of international organisations. There are some important papers concerning the 1994. There is also material relating to Salam's work with the South Commission during the period Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 Section L, Science and the Arabic and Islamic world, is not extensive. It contains material relating to the various societies, organisations and educational bodies working for scientific advance in an Islamic context with which Salam, as an advocate of development through science and a devout Muslim, was connected. A small number of conferences and meetings concerning Islam, religion and science and religious freedom to which Salam was invited are documented in this section. Section M, Pakistan, documents Salam's relations and interactions with Pakistan. It contains material relating to the numerous Pakistan societies and organisations with which Salam was associated in a personal or, as Scientific Adviser to the President, professional capacity. There is also a small amount of official correspondence with the Pakistani government. Salam's efforts to tackle Pakistan's waterlogging and salinity problems, his interest in a scientific approach to achieving improvements in national agriculture and food production, and his commitment to the promotion of Pakistan science education are represented here. The section includes material relating to Salam's Iqbal Memorial Lectures broadcast on Radio Pakistan in 1965. Section N, Private correspondence and invitations, is composed of various correspondence and invitations addressed to Salam personally and differentiated in his filing system as ‘private’. The Section O, References and recommendations, covers the period draft papers sent to Salam for comment or assessment. There is a separate sequence of material to attend events, lend his support to campaigns or serve on committees and editorial boards are also correspondence and papers relating to requests for references and recommendations received by correspondence relating to the suitability of a certain candidate for a particular academic post. There advice from young scientists based in developing countries. Many of the letters are accompanied by correspondence covers a broad range of topics but consists mainly of requests for financial help or Salam. These range from informal petitions for help from individuals hoping to study science to formal relating to correspondence received from Pakistani students and scientists. Invitations asking Salam There is also an index of correspondents. Pakistan. Documentation of Salam's nomination of candidates for various prizes and awards also is a separate sequence of material relating to letters received from students and scientists based in appears in this section. included in this section. 1964-1994. It contains Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are very grateful to Mrs Anne Gatti, Director's Office, ICTP, for her help and assistance throughout this long and important project. L. Richmond Bath 2001 Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/4/01 SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL A.1-A.871 A.1-A.7 OBITUARIES AND TRIBUTES A.8-A.26 BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL A.27-A.468 CAREER, HONOURS AND AWARDS A.469-A.607 ‘PERSONAL DOCUMENTS' A.608-A.854 PRESS CUTTINGS AND ARTICLES A.855-A.865 ‘PROPOSALS' A.866-A.87 1 APPENDIX Obituaries. The Guardian, 22 November 1996. The Times, 26 November 1996. OBITUARIES AND TRIBUTES 1996-1998 ‘Muhammad Abdus Salam, KBE' by T. W. B. Kibble, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 44, 385-401 (1998). July 1997. Announcement of Salam's death, , 28 The Independent, 29 November 1996. Abdus Salam NCUACS 99/04/01 Biographical Papers November 1997. re Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting, ICTP, Trieste, Italy, 21 Tribute by ‘A ~hoxha/salam.html>, 28 July 1997. to Abdus Salam’ M. J. Duff,