International Nathiagali Summer College: Scientists ready themselves for knowledge-sharing summer

7,000 Pakistani, 1,020 foreign scientists have attended event over past 37 years.

ISLAMABAD:

For the past 37 years, Pakistani scientists and researchers have sat with their global counterparts in the scenic hill station of Nathiagali to ponder over advanced Physics matters.

The International Nathiagali Summer College (INSC), which has been organised every year since 1976 by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), will bring the international scientific community together again from June 24 to July 9, 2013.

State Minister for Science and Technology Khurram Dastgir Khan will inaugurate the summer college.

Around 300 scientists from around the world, including scientific institutions in developed countries, will be attending INSC 2013.

According to a press release issued by PAEC, “the primary aim of the college is to promote interaction of the world’s scientific community.”



The INSC is based on the idea of Pakistan’s Nobel Prize winner, Dr Abdus Salam, who was a staunch advocate of scientific knowledge sharing between developing and developed countries, to ensure that scientists
have access to advanced learning and research opportunities.

The college has been regularly sponsored by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (AS ICTP), the US National Science Foundation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Czech Academy of Sciences and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Around 7,000 Pakistani scientists, 1,020 foreign scientists from 72 developing countries and at least 670 eminent scientists including six Nobel laureates have attended the summer college over the past 37 years, said INSC Executive Secretary Javaid Khurshid in a written statement.

Steve Myers, creator and director of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and AS ICTP Director Professor Fernando Quevedo will also attend the event briefly.

During the gathering’s first week, participants will go over particle accelerators, their applications and new concepts in the field, while the Physics of ultra cold atoms will be discussed during the second week. Ultra cold atoms are atoms that are kept at temperatures near -273 Celsius to study their quantam mechanics properties.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2013.