A

David

Darling

Salam, Abdus (1926–1996)

Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam was a Pakistani physicist who proposed (1967) a theory that unifies electromagnetism with the weak force within the nucleus of an atom. Salam and the US physicist Steven Weinberg worked independently on the theory, now known as the Weinberg-Salam theory. This indicated an underlying relationship between the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force and postulated that the weak force must be transmitted by hitherto-undiscovered particles known as weak vector bosons, or W and Z bosons. After the theory was proved experimentally, the pair shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with US physicist Sheldon Glashow, who also independently came to similar conclusions. Abdus Salam was the first Muslim Nobel scientist.