Physics · a Light

He built a physics institute for scientists with no equipment

On 10 December 1979 Abdus Salam of Pakistan received the Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg, for work showing that electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force are two aspects of one force. He was the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize in a science. He accepted it in Punjabi dress and a turban. Long before the prize, in 1964, he had founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste so that physicists from poor countries could spend part of each year working with equipment and colleagues and then return home rather than emigrate. Thousands have passed through it. He is buried in Pakistan.

Abdus Salam · Nobel Prize, 10 December 1979