Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam (1926-1996), Pakistani physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his contributions to the understanding of the interactions of elementary particles. Salam was born in Jhang Sadar, India (now in Pakistan), attended the Government College at Lahore, and received a doctorate in mathematics and physics from the University of Cambridge in 1952. He taught at both institutions before becoming professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, in 1957, and he was made director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, when it was established in 1964. In 1967, with the American physicist Steven Weinberg, Salam offered a so-called unification hypothesis that incorporated the known facts about the electromagnetic and weak interactions between atomic particles (Elementary Particles). When tested, the hypothesis held up, unlike a number of alternative hypotheses. The men shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics for this work with American physicist Sheldon Lee Glashow, who also contributed to the understanding of particle interactions.