Memorial Meeting
for
Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam’s
90th Birthday
Institute of Advanced Studies
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore
Francis Kofi A. Allotey
President, AIMS-Ghana
25-28 January, 2016
Nobel Laureate Prof. Abdus Salam, 1926-1996
The presentation will be treated in the
following way;
I.
Prof. Salam, Mentor and Teacher
II. Prof. Salam, ICTP and Development of Physics and
Mathematics in Africa
III. Prof. Salam, a candidate for the post of Director
General of UNESCO
IV. Epilogue
3
Prof. Salam, Mentor and Teacher
 Met Prof. Salam in 1959 at Imperial College as a graduate
student, Department of mathematics then located at the Huxley
Building, South Kensington.
25 years Staff Loyal Service Celebration, ICTP, Trieste.
4
 He was Prof. of Applied Mathematics and Head of Applied
Mathematics Section of the Department of Mathematics.
 I attended his lectures on Group Theory and Fundamental
Particle Physics. It was a very popular course for almost all
postgraduate students and young lecturers in Theoretical
Physics at the various Colleges in the University of London.
 Brilliant and insightful lecture and contained many new
ideas particularly his classification of the known
fundamental particles using group theoretical methods.
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 Confident and inspiring and always wore black gown.
 Used the largest auditorium.
 Always full and many students had to stand during his lectures.
 I was the only African student attending his course. He became
interested in my academic work and welfare.
 His wife invited my wife several times for afternoon tea in their
home.
 Religious and a devoted Muslim.
 His uncle was a pioneer Ahamadiyya missionary in Ghana,
specifically in the town where I was born and grew up.
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 However, Prof. Salam did not discuss his religious beliefs with
his students, colleagues and employees.
 Very kind and a philanthropist and spent his fund assisting some
high schools in Africa.
 1960’s Prof. Salam sent one of his graduate student from Pakistan
to teach physics and mathematics in a high school in Ghana for 1
year before commencing his Ph.D at Imperial College.
 He and Professor Harry Jones, the Head of Mathematics
Department at Imperial College gave me references when I
decided to go to Princeton University for my Ph.D.
7
 Prof. Salam wrote to me in 1967 that he was initiating a new
programme
 And wanted me to participate in the Condensed Matter Physics
programme at ICTP that he had established in 1964.
 And since 1967, I have been visiting ICTP regularly without a
break as:
 Participant,
 Associate and Senior Associate,
 Course Director and
 since 1996, member of the ICTP Scientific Council.
 1992 nominated me to represent him on the Scientific Council of
the International Institute for Theoretical and Applied Physics at
the Iowa State University
 Established on the model of the ICTP.
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Prof. Salam, ICTP and Development of
Physics and Mathematics in Africa
 ICTP, first institution to play a crucial role in positively
developing Physics in Africa through human capacity
development in various areas of physics and mathematics.
 Helped African scientists keep active in research while staying in
their home countries.
 Every year, about 6000 scientists visit ICTP for advanced training
and research, about 600 of them are from Africa.
 ICTP organizes several training courses, workshops and
conferences in Africa.
 ICTP also has programmes like TRIL and STEP.
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 In the STEP programme, a student who has registered for a PhD
in a developing country is chosen for three visits to ICTP for a
total of about 18 months, usually having a co-advisor in ICTP or
in any ICTP-affiliated institution. The students receive their PhD
from their home institutions.
 STEP is to minimize brain drain while providing opportunity for
collaboration and access to top facilities.
 ICTP has several affiliated centres and projects in Africa and has
helped train several senior African physicists
mathematicians holding important positions in Africa.
and
 In each region in Africa, one can find associates and former
associates of the centre. They design the scientific policy of their
countries and many hold important academic and research
positions.
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 There are associates who have become ministers or secretaries in
scientific affairs and presidents of universities. Almost all
presidents of physical societies in Africa have been associated
with ICTP.
 The immediate past Commissioner for Science and Technology
of the African Union was an ICTP associate and a former director
of ICTP-affiliated center in his home country, the Republic of
Benin.
11
 Formation of a society for African Physicists originated at ICTP
on 26th August 1983, when thirty-five African scientists, visiting
ICTP from various parts of Africa, held a meeting and resolved to
form the Society of African Physicists and Mathematicians
(SAPAM) out of the following concerns for:
 The state of physics and mathematics in Africa,
 Lack of cohesion and functional links among African
scientists,
 Great scientific and technological gap between the
industrialized and developing countries particularly in
Africa, and
 Aware that mathematics and physics are the basis for the
creation of modern industries.
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• SAPAM received an overwhelming support from Prof. Salam
and he agreed to host the formal inaugural meeting at ICTP in
October 1984 during ICTP’s 20thAnniversay Celebration.
•During the inauguration, a pan-African Symposium on the
“State of Physics and Mathematics in Africa” was organized
under the patronage of Prof. Salam with me as Chairman of the
planning committee.
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Dr. G. Andreotti, then Italian Foreign Minister and former
Prime Minister of Italy attended the inaugural meeting. He
stressed the importance of science, technology and innovation
for sustainable economic development and he was happy
about the inauguration of SAPAM.
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14
 He said and here I quote “…the populations affected by food
and health problems must be helped, but they must also
face these problems within a wider context, which would
give them the tools for an autonomous development.
“Thus there is (besides the immediate direct help) another
kind of help nonetheless essential from the point of our
civil responsibility: the formation of researchers,
technicians and experts whose competence is the base of
the economic development of less developed countries and
will ensure the good use of long term investments
prerequisite for any civic progress.”
15
 Dr. Andreotti substantially increased the amount requested by
Professor Salam from the Italian government for the ICTP and
this enabled ICTP to establish Office of External Activity (OEA)
and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He asked other
development partners and donor agencies to assist Africa in the
area of Science, Technology and Innovation.
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 Among the problems contributing to the poor state of physics
and mathematics in Africa were inadequate student numbers,
shortage of teachers, lack of critical mass for an effective
research, poor experimental facilities, a shortage of text books
and journals and inadequate interactions among African
mathematicians and physicists and with the rest of the world.
 A strategy for solving these problems was discussed and adopted
for implementation.
 Prof. Salam took active part in the deliberations.
 ICTP support and encouragement from Professor Salam, SAPAM
organized in 1986, a Pan African workshop in Nairobi, Kenya on
harmonization of curriculum in physics, mathematics and
computer science at the tertiary level of education in Africa.
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 First of its kind in Africa.
 Training in the production of low-cost scientific equipment for
education in science in Africa was initiated.
 In 1987,
SAPAM initiated the APEPMA (Applicability of
Environmental Physics and Meteorology in Africa) series of
workshops to sensitize the physical science community and
African policy makers on issues related to climate and the
environment.
 The first workshop took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the
time when that part of Africa experienced one of the most
devastating droughts of the 20th century.

 SAPAM had been organizing African Regional College on
Renewable Energy known as the “Kumasi College on Renewal
Energy” since 1986 in Ghana.
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 Some of the participants at these workshops have held and some
are still holding positions such as ministers in charge of energy,
members of energy commissions, researchers and teachers in
energy studies, technology and innovation in their countries.
 With the collaboration of ICTP, SAPAM achieved great successes
by organizing conferences and workshops, building links
amongst physicists working in Africa and building links with
physicists worldwide and organizing public engagements.
 SAPAM played a leading role in Africa during the celebration of
the year 2005 as an International Year of Physics.
 African Union (AU) granted the society an observer status.
 Relative success of SAPAM led to the formation of Edward
Bouchet Institute in 1988 at ICTP on the suggestion from Prof.
Salam.
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 After his death in 1996, it was renamed Edward Bouchet
Abdus Salam Institute (EBASI), which is an USA-AfricaICTP initiative.
1st African Physical Society (AfPS) Council Meeting, Dakar, January 2010
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 EBASI provides: mechanisms for synergistic and technical
collaborations between Africa, African diaspora and American
physicists, scientists, engineers and technologists.
 Aim of this is the enhancement of the impact of science and
technology on sustainable development of the countries on the
African continent. And also to increase the technical manpower
pool working in Africa by facilitating the training of PhD
students from African Universities.
 EBASI
periodically organizes international scientific and
technical conferences, workshops and topical meetings which
are hosted by Universities in many African countries.
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 These conferences promote collaborations between American
and African Physicists, Scientists, engineers and technologists
and tremendously enhance the quality of African Universities
that hosts them. EBASI which has been a very successful
initiative has resulted in the training of a number of African
graduate students, exchange of Professors from African and
American Universities and the provision of scientific equipment.
 At the 6th EBASI meeting and general assembly of SAPAM
attended by over 200 physicists from all over Africa on 24th
January, 2007 at iThemba Laboratory, Cape Town, South Africa,
it was resolved that SAPAM should be transformed and be
known as the African Physical Society (AfPS).
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 A professional society was needed to become an advocate for
Physics and physicists at the African Union, in governments of
the 54 African countries, amongst the Universities, research
institutions and corporate bodies, schools and in the African
general public; a society that organizes meetings, conducts
professional developmental workshops, suggests standard of
professional conduct and provides information and does all the
things that professional associations do.
Presidents, SIF and AfPS, 45th Anniversary
Celebration of ICTP, Treiste, November 2010
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 At the iThemba Laboratory meeting in Cape Town South Africa,
the official publication of AfPS known as African Journal of
Physics was inaugurated with the editorial office located at ICTP,
Trieste, Italy.
 It is a free on-line peer-reviewed international journal dedicated
to publishing in all branches of experimental and theoretical
physics with emphasis on originality and relevance to basic
understanding of
contemporal physics and related
interdisciplinary fields.
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The AfPS was formally launched on the 12th January 2010 under the
distinguished patronage of His Excellency, Maitre Abdulaye Wade,
then the President of the Republic of Senegal. There were 110 African
Physicists from 21 African Countries and all national physical societies
in Africa were present.
President Wade
LAM-N (Laser Atomic Molecular-Network) and AfPS Members with
Senegal’s President
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 It is worth mentioning here that the African Physical Society
played a leading role through the Government of Ghana for the
UNESCO Executive Board to endorse 2015 as the International
Year of Light (IYL) and then for the United Nations to proclaim
2015 as International Year of Light and Light based technologies.
 AfPS has received a request from the International Commission
for Acoustics to play a similar leading role in seeking an
endorsement from UNESCO for the United Nations to proclaim
2019 as an International Year of Sound.
 The initiative to establish an African Academy of Sciences
(AAS) originated at ICTP in 1985. It was during the inauguration
of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) when Professor
Salam organized Regional meetings for the scientists
participating in the inauguration of TWAS. Prof. Salam took part
in the African Regional meeting as an observer. It was during the
meeting that the idea to form AAS evolved. He gave his strong
moral and financial support to make AAS a reality.
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Prof. Salam, a candidate for the post of
Director General of UNESCO
 With the huge success of ICTP and his strong belief that science
was a common human heritage, Prof. Salam wanted to apply the
ICTP model to UNESCO, particularly the “S” (Science) part,
hence his quest for the post of Director General of UNECSO.
 Prof Salam wanted to establish ICTP Centers in many developing
countries and placed Science, Technology and Innovation (STI)
on the high agenda in developing countries.
 Prof. Salam strongly believed that the development gap between
countries in the North and those in the South was basically a
manifestation of science and technological gap.
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 Nothing else, neither differential cultural values or differing
perception or religious thoughts nor differing systems of
economics or governance can explain why the North to the
exclusion of the South can master this globe of ours and beyond
 He made me his campaign manager to vie for African votes. We
spent about ten days soliciting votes for him at the UNESCO
Headquarters in Paris. Despite the massive support for him from
the developing countries, particularly African countries, his
country Pakistan refused to endorse his candidature to the
UNESCO Executive Board. His candidature was therefore not
placed at the General conference for the election to the post of
Director General of UNESCO.
 The Pakistan government rather nominated a retired Army
General who eventually lost.
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EPILOGUE:
 Professor Abdus Salam would have been very pleased to know
that his vision of establishing ICTP centres in developing
countries was being realized with the granting by the UNESCO
General Conference in November 2015, a UNESCO Category II
status to four institutions in Brazil, China, Mexico and Rwanda
which will bear the name ICTP.
 Some years after the death of Professor Salam, while I was
attending a Board meeting of International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors in Vienna, Austria, (of which
Prof. Salam was also a former Governor), Pakistani Official
approached me. He informed me that though Pakistan, a
Muslim country, does not approve the mounting of human
images and busts, it would however, not object if Prof. Salam’s
bust would be mounted at IAEA
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 Similar to that of Prof. Homi Bhabha, Prof. Marie Curie-
Sklodowska, Prof. Otto Hahn and Prof. Igor Kurchatov.
 He further informed me that he would ask ICTP to follow it up
and that Pakistan would bear the cost involved.
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 At this stage, I wish to apologize for being personal. Through
ICTP, I have been able to contribute to physics, mathematics and
international science policy and development while still working
in Ghana.
 Since 1967, I have been visiting ICTP regularly without a break
as; Participant, Associate, Senior Associate, Course Director and
since 1996, as a member of the ICTP Scientific Council.
 Governor at IAEA, Vice President of International Union of Pure
and Applied Physics (IUPAP), President of African Physical
Society, Vice President African Academy of Sciences, a co-author,
UN Blue Book Series No.1 (1981), Comprehensive Study on
Nuclear Weapons. I was a member of 12 experts, “called the 12
wise men” that advised UN on “IAEA Beyond the Year 2000”.
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 In Ghana, I have been Chairman of Ghana Atomic Energy
Commission. Pro Vice Chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology, President of Ghana
Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chairman, Council for Scientific
and Industrial Research, and President, AIMS Ghana.
 I played a leading role through the government of Ghana in the
process that led UN to declare 2015, International Year of Light
and Light Based Technologies.
 I am a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society and in
2012, the UK Institute of Physics conferred on me an Honorary
Fellow.
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To commemorate my contribution to science, Ghana
government issued a postage stamp with my portrait in 2006
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I am what I am in the world of physics
due to Prof. Salam’s mentorship and
inspiration of which I am very grateful.
Thank You