Abdus Salam, the subject of the book was a Pakistani scientist who shared the Physics Nobel Prize in 1979. Born in a remote, rural sunburnt country town in the outback of colonial Punjab, he made it to the forefront of theoretical physics. Abdus Salam compartmentalised his studies of physics, politics, religion, and family.
Although his life in physics has been sufficiently covered, few have extensively studied his life and engagement in other fields. He served military regimes and was closely associated with the birth of nuclear expertise in Pakistan where his membership of the schismatic Ahmadiyah community marginalised him. His working life was divided between London’s Imperial College and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.
His fans perceive him as a victim of religious bigotry but, on his part, he did not seem to exercise scientific detachment in religion. Abdus Salam had two wives. His second wife, Louise Johnson (1940-2012), was a leading Molecular Biologist who served as Professor Emeritus in Oxford University; and it remains an awkward question as to how the two managed bigamy in Europe. Abdus Salam validated the Judaic-Muslim prohibition of pig meat and went as far as judging people who consumed pork as ‘shameless’ like the beast itself. A substantial amount of information provided in the book is supported by direct one-to-one interviews the author of the book conducted with Abdus Salam in 1984.
Discover