The two-week 2013 INSC, which will be attended by 300 scientists from all over the world, is focusing on Accelerator Physics and Ultra Cold Atoms this year. PHOTO: FILE
Governments should not only invest in formal research that provides immediate benefits to society but also focus on basic sciences that helps explore the deep questions of nature.
This was said by Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Director Fernando Quevedo on Monday.
He was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the 38th annual International Nathiagali Summer College (INSC) at the National
Centre for Physics in Islamabad.
“Scientists should not be forced to only work on applied subjects,” he said.
The summer college, which was the brainchild of Dr Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate, is organised every year since 1976 by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).
“Dr Salam used to assign two different projects to the local scientists, one applied and one formal, so they do not forget that they are part of society.”
The ICTP has supported the college throughout the past four decades, Quevedo added.
“I am sure Prof Salam would have been very proud to see how his younger fellow scientists have been able to continue his efforts and have been able to put Pakistan at high scientific level,” Quevedo said.
Dr Ansar Parvez, chairman of the PAEC, said Pakistan has a crop of talented young scientists who need to be facilitated.
“We need to strengthen our scientific infrastructure to provide them level playing field,” Parvez said. “Of course, economic prosperity and reduction in poverty can be achieved through education”
Hamid Saleem, director general of the National Centre for Physics, said Dr Salam came up with the idea for the INSC to break the intellectual isolation of the scientists from developing countries and promote global scientific interaction.
The two-week 2013 INSC, which will be attended by 300 scientists from all over the world, is focusing on Accelerator Physics and Ultra Cold Atoms this year.
Director of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, Steve Myers, will also participate in the session about accelerator physics at the start of the session.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2013.
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God bless Professor Salam.
No comments from any corner.In land of pure no one seems to be happy and interested in this remarkable event. Probably Dr Salam was not that pure to accepted as pride for Pakistan. What a country!