He had been known to be quite annoyed at a Western country which told him that developing nations needed bullock carts and not research when he approached it for help in setting up ICTP.
Source/Credit: NST | Life & Times
By Koh Aik Khoon | May 5, 2013
A LEGACY: The late Professor Dr Abdus Salam was the first Muslim Nobel laureate in Physics.
He shared the prestigious prize with Steven Weinberg of the United States and Sheldon Glashow of the Soviet Union in 1979 for their work on electroweak models.
I was privileged to have an audience with him in 1990 at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Tieste, Italy. He was its founding director.
In 1996, Abdus Salam died at 70 of Parkinson's disease which he had suffered for several years.
When I met him in his office, he was dressed in coat and tie, with his walking stick by his desk.
When I showed the late Zainon Ahmad a picture of me posing with Abdus Salam, Zainon thought a pistol was on his table. The handle of the walking stick resembled a pistol butt. In addition to being fascinated by the elegance of Physics, Abdus Salam also had a penchant for sartorial elegance.
This was best illustrated by one of the greatest days of his life -- the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.
In his book, The Great Beyond, Paul Halpern related the story of Abdus Salam at the event as follows: "His entrance to the Nobel ceremony was quite sensational.
"Among co-recipients and audience members wearing suits, he dressed to make a statement about non-Western values.
"Abdus Salam's former student Michael Duff who was with the University of Michigan described the scene -- 'Abdus Salam arrived attired in traditional dress; bejewelled turban, baggy pants, scimitar, and those wonderful curly shoes that made him appear as though he had just stepped out of the pages of the Arabian Nights'."
According to Halpern, Abdus Salam had completely upstaged Glashow and Weinberg.
You normally expect the ritual to be a solemn affair. In Abdus Salam's case it was to make a statement.
He had been known to be quite annoyed at a Western country which told him that developing nations needed bullock carts and not research when he approached it for help in setting up ICTP.
Luckily for him, he had the sympathetic ear of the Italian government which gave him land in Trieste and funding.
Italy, being the land of Renaissance, is also a nation which venerates learning.
Carlo Rubbia and Enrico Fermi are some of the top physicists of Italian descent. Rubbia won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1984 and Fermi in 1938.
ICTP is still in existence, drawing physicists from all over the world to attend either its workshops and seminars or to do research.
The legacy of Abdus Salam lives on. Physics benefits from his foresight and wisdom.
Read original post here: Perspective: Making a statement in a bejewelled turban
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