The Truth about Dr Abdus Salam & a background on Pakistan's Nuclear Bomb

[Atheria]

Salaam Abdus Salam
DAWN.COM — PUBLISHED NOV 21, 2011 10:37AM

Mohammad Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was his full name, which may add to the knowledge of those who wish he was either not Ahmadi or Pakistani. The man proudly lived and died as both, and much more, as Pakistan disowned him, in life and in death. The government denied him the honour of a state funeral; the media remained absent from the burial ceremony at Rabwah, which has since been renamed not after Abdus Salam but as Chenab Nagar, just to spite its Ahmadi residents.


The restyled epitaph at his grave near his native Jhang awkwardly reads: “First ------ Nobel Laureate”, from which the word “Muslim” has been deleted under court orders; the court, even in its narrow mindedness could have ordered the replacement of “Muslim” with “Pakistani” but that was not to be. This son of Jhang is less known in his own country today than the terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, even though he had founded and led an abler lashkar (brigade) of some 500 Pakistani physicists and mathematicians over the years whom he arranged to send to UK and US universities on scholarship for higher studies.

He was the guiding spirit and founder of Pakistan’s nuclear programme as well as Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco). The pygmies who after him headed the two institutes he was allowed to set up in Pakistan in his pre-non-Muslim years have since been credited with laurels, and honoured more, even in their dishonourable conduct, as father of this and that, while the Godfather remains conspicuous by his absence in official records.

Dr Salam became the victim of rigid social attitudes and state discrimination against his community when Z.A. Bhutto through an act of parliament declared the Ahmadis non-Muslim in 1974. Heartbroken at the humiliation, he left Pakistan in protest to live in Europe where in 1979 he was awarded the Nobel for his groundbreaking research in theoretical physics; soon roads were named after him in Geneva and Trieste, if not in Islamabad or Jhang. The same year, as it happened, Bhutto was hanged by Gen Zia’s kangaroo court, but the Ahmadis’ predicament was Bhutto’s only legacy that Zia embraced wholeheartedly and built on even further. Despite being given the roughshod, Dr Salam from his institute in Italy, continued to patronise bright Pakistani scientists and students through a scholarship programme. His alma mater Government College, Lahore, which has named its mathematics and physics departments after Dr Salam, and Pakistan Post, which issued a two-rupee stamp to honour him, remain the only state institutions to have acknowledged him.

The nascent rock band aptly named as Beghairat Brigade, of Aalu Anday fame, has hit the nail on the spot with their lyrics of the popular song which rightly laments: aithe Abdus Salm noon puchhdai koi nai (nobody values Abdus Salam here) as they point out that murderers Qadri and Qasab have become our heroes. His birth anniversary, January 29, remains a long shot from being celebrated as Dr Abdus Salam Day, even though we invent anomalies like the Yaum-i-Takbir (atomic detonation day) and Sindhi Culture Day, amongst the myriad others, that are officially marked on our calendar. How truly unworthy is Pakistan of its only Nobel laureate.

Rest in peace, Dr Salam.

The writer is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper.
Salaam Abdus Salam - Pakistan - DAWN.COM

 

[VCheng]

I am a biomedical researcher and specialize in recombinant DNA technology. Having working on this for past 15 years and applying it for developing recombinant therapeutic proteins for the treatment of HIV to Dengue and cancers, I have learnt a great deal and these expertise of mine have become sort of a 2nd nature to me. Now if I move back to Pakistan, establish my lab and resume working on what I have been working all my professional life wont be called 'stealing' of technology for this is a knowledge that I have acquired through my research and hard work. In parallel, I have also been creating knowledge base and publishing it both as research papers and patents. That is how science, any science for that mater, works. Only an ignorant fool would call this 'stealing'. Dr Qadeer stole technology... idiocy, ignorance, and immense hatred for Pakistan at their best.

If you took your brain and your gonads with you, it is fine. If you stole the blueprints for construction of classified machinery to which you had no authorized access, it would be called stealing. Simple.

 

[Mr.Nair]

branded traitor by Pakistani masses should be considered a compliment,
Abdus salam ,that patriotic man, shunned and hated because of his ahmedi faith and on the other hand the nuclear proliferater Qadir khan is glorified

If khan was great and sane, why he support water car project ? No body commit any financial assistance to khan to say so. I never expect any genuine scientist to say that worlds biggest blunder.

 

[Atheria]

How many of you know ACTUAL scientists behind Pakistani bomb unlike the glory hound who approved of a scientific sham like Agha Waqar?

Photo illustration by Minhaj Ahmed Rafi

THEORETICAL PHYSICIST RIAZUDDIN DIED IN SEPTEMBER. PITY NO ONE NOTICED.


The Man Who Designed Pakistan’s Bomb ‹ Newsweek Pakistan

Nobody did nothing to Abdus Salam. He left Pakistan in protest following the declaration of Ahmedi as a minority.

Please do not give sweeping statements on a subject you have no clue of. Thanks.

do enlighten me, And you have no idea what i know or don't know

 

[syedali73]

Dr. Qadeer was working on the enrichment of Uranium through a process called centrifugation. Centrifuges are used to separate (sediment) heavier particles from lighter ones by applying varying degrees of centrifugal forces. Similar machines are also used in other fields such as biology. There is no need to 'steal' any technology for all sorts of centrifuges are commercially available and so long a person understands how they function, and is aware of their mechanics, as most engineers/researchers do, they can re-create them. I have been working with numerous machines and can re-create them with the help of engineers should the need arise. This is not called 'stealing' but those hard-core Pakistan haters would never accept this for they are ridiculing Pakistan and its nuclear program on an agenda.

 

[de_xtr]

Abdul qadeer khan is a fraud, He endorsed the Water car joke.
He was a metallurgist and not a nuclear physicist

Hi,
AQ Khan may be a lot of things and some may even go upto the degree of saying that he is fraud or a thief, but there is no point in denying the fact that he, along with his team built an atomic bomb, if we choose to ignore other theories that the bomb might have been provided by China in such short notice etc.

The technology involved may be old, but what makes it special is many aspects of it are closely guarded, strictly controlled and monitored World over and most importantly, you don't get make many attempts to test it.

Also, I hope you understand and know what you are talking about when you are comparing a metallurgist and a physicist. Can you define who gets to be called as a physicist and who does not ?
Give the task AQ Khan had to do, I believe his knowledge and experience as a metallurgist was extremely helpful, particularly in enrichment processes.

 

[syedali73]

How many of you know ACTUAL scientists behind Pakistani bomb unlike the glory hound who approved of a scientific sham like Agha Waqar?

Photo illustration by Minhaj Ahmed Rafi

THEORETICAL PHYSICIST RIAZUDDIN DIED IN SEPTEMBER. PITY NO ONE NOTICED.


The Man Who Designed Pakistan’s Bomb ‹ Newsweek Pakistan




do enlighten me, And you have no idea what i know or don't know

How many names of scientists/engineers involved in Manhattan project are known to American public except for those few who lead the program?

 

[VCheng]

............. so long a person understands how they function, and is aware of their mechanics, as most engineers/researchers do, they can re-create them.............

It ain't that simple, jus' sayin'.

And I know of what I speak.

 

[VCheng]

You know nothing..............

Well, my name ain't Jon Snow.

Now may we please get back on topic?

Pakistan's nuclear program was a team effort from beginning to end. It was contributed to by many dedicated individuals and the end result is a tribute to all of them, without any need for personality worship or ridicule.

 

[Atheria]

Also, I hope you understand and know what you are talking about when you are comparing a metallurgist and a physicist. Can you define who gets to be called as a physicist and who does not ?
Give the task AQ Khan had to do, I believe his knowledge and experience as a metallurgist was extremely helpful, particularly in enrichment processes.

I dont deny his role in nuclear enrichment , the way he and his supporters claims monopoly over the program is wrong, the way Abdus salam's contributions are shunned because of his faith is wrong

In order to determine the real father of Pakistan’s “Islamic” bomb, one must consider whose role in the whole enterprise was the most indispensible? Consider for example the role of Dr. Abdus Salam – the man Dr. A Q Khan routinely abuses in his columns. Dr. Salam started campaigning for a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the 1950s. In 1965, Dr. Salam established the Pakistan Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology and helped get the plutonium reactor off the ground.
In 1971 he brought from the US, all available scientific literature on the Manhattan project including the critical calculations required for the bomb, during the 1971 war. It was Salam who in 1972 arranged the Multan Meeting which essentially kickstarted the Pakistani effort to get the bomb. Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist of little renown or competence, was at the time not even on the scene. Salam also organized the theoretical physics division and the mathematical physics division which was to serve as the nursery for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Even after his fall out with Bhutto over the 1974 amendment, Salam continued to advise nuclear scientists in Pakistan. It was Salam who in 1978 laid the foundations of Sino-Pak industrial nuclear cooperation. Given that each of these efforts was a pillar on which the nuclear program was built, one would say that Dr. Salam’s role was as central to Pakistan’s efforts in acquiring nuclear technology as Jinnah’s role was to the creation of the country.

Via Yasir latif hamdani

If you took your brain and your gonads with you, it is fine. If you stole the blueprints for construction of classified machinery to which you had no authorized access, it would be called stealing. Simple.

Infact Dr.AQ Khan made our nuclear program controversial by smuggling the blueprints of centrifuges from Europe

 

[syedali73]

I dont deny his role in nuclear enrichment , the way he and his supporters claims monopoly over the program is wrong, the way Abdus salam's contributions are shunned because of his faith is wrong

Via Yasir latif hamdani

He has never ever claimed that he made the bomb single handedly. He wrote a serie of columns in Jang and I guess some member (perhaps @Bratva) also posted them here, in which he has given the names, and duly acknowledged the contribution of various team members whose names were now safe to disclose. Kahuta project was not metro bus project and it was utmost important to keep the identity of those involved in complete secrecy. I am amazed (perhaps I should not) to see that certain pseudo-intellectual Pakistan hater cant even see and/or appreciate this insanely logical reason.

 

[Atheria]

The other unsung hero is totally forgotten Dr. Munir Ahmed,who did his work so silently during his chairmanship that the probing eyes could not get any clue about his work.Owing to his contacts in IAEC,he created the required knowledge pool of engineers,theorists and tecnologists through arranging trainings world wide on almost mass scale.Without that knowledge pool of thousnds of trained scientists no bomb would have been ever possible.It can not be done by a few dozens of scientists because very diverse technologies have to be integrated for the desired results. people without a backgrond in engineering and tecnology can not understand the premier nature of this aspect of an intricate nature of the nuclear program.We also did not have a considerable industrial base in the country like other nuclear countries which could have contributed to the project.Not even a reasonably good mechenical workshop or advanced skills in speciallized welding and other fabrication facilities like EB or precision profile metal cutting technologies were available.

 

[de_xtr]

I dont deny his role in nuclear enrichment , the way he and his supporters claims monopoly over the program is wrong, the way Abdus salam's contributions are shunned because of his faith is wrong

Lobbying by some people does not lessen the achievement. However, on a personal level, I would prefer to see nuclear energy to be used only for peaceful purposes.
I agree with you on your point regarding Dr. Abdus Salam.

 

[VCheng]

The other unsung hero is totally forgotten Dr. Munir Ahmed,who did his work so silently during his chairmanship that the probing eyes could not get any clue about his work.Owing to his contacts in IAEC,he created the required knowledge pool of engineers,theorists and tecnologists through arranging trainings world wide on almost mass scale.Without that knowledge pool of thousnds of trained scientists no bomb would have been ever possible.It can not be done by a few dozens of scientists because very diverse technologies have to be integrated for the desired results. people without a backgrond in engineering and tecnology can not understand the premier nature of this aspect of an intricate nature of the nuclear program.We also did not have a considerable industrial base in the country like other nuclear countries which could have contributed to the project.Not even a reasonably good mechenical workshop or advanced skills in speciallized welding and other fabrication facilities like EB or precision profile metal cutting technologies were available.

The number of crucial individuals that made Pakistan's present day nuclear weaponry possible runs into a few thousands. I might even know some of them.

 

[syedali73]

The other unsung hero is totally forgotten Dr. Munir Ahmed,who did his work so silently during his chairmanship that the probing eyes could not get any clue about his work.

Munir was not a PhD. Please try to learn the subject before talking about it. And some pseudo-intellectual Pakistan hater who claim to have met Pakistan nuclear scientist even went on thanking your erroneous post. Cool.

Do you honestly think that mistake negates everything else i wrote?

Look my friend, I do not doubt your honesty, but I do know for fact that your knowledge pertaining to the subject is not adequate. Please review back my posts, I have never said that Pakistan's nuclear project was work of a single person. I also gave you the example of Manhattan project, I told you the nature of such programs is top secret, I wrote that in a series of his columns, Dr. Qadeer did mention the names of various team members and acknowledge their contribution. Munir and Salam were good friends but their contribution towards nuclear program was minimal. After all there was a reason (security clearance to be precise) why PM Bhutto decided to keep Munir (who was not Ahmedi for instance, if that is the excuse) away from Kahuta. I am sorry my tone was a bit harsh.