Obituary: Noted physicist dies

Riazuddin laid the foundation for particle physics in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s distinguished particle physicist Prof Riazuddin passed away on Monday.

The internationally-renowned scientist was also the founding chairman the Institute of Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University, and continued to head it when it was changed into the varsity’s Physics Department.

Riazuddin was a student of Prof Abdus Salam at Cambridge, who returned to Pakistan along with other young and talented physicists of the Enrico Fermin Institute of the University of Chicago to lay the foundation for particle physics in the country. Riazuddin was also the founder of the International Centre for Theoretical Particle Physics group at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.

He played a crucial role in Pakistan’s nuclear program in its critical early stages and remained the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s board member for science, where he also initiated the International Nathiagali Summer College series that continues till date. He was also the founding Director of the National Centre for Physics in Islamabad.

His death will be mourned by a wide circle of former colleagues and students in Pakistan and abroad.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2013.