Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam was born to Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain and Hajira Hussain in Jhang,[1] into a Punjabi Muslim family that was part of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. His grandfather, Gul Muhammad, was a religious scholar as well as a physician,[9] while his father was an education officer in the Department of Education of Punjab State in a poor farming district.

St John's College, Cambridge is where Salam studied.

Salam very early established a reputation throughout Punjab and later at the University of Cambridge for outstanding brilliance and academic achievement. At age 14, Salam scored the highest marks ever recorded for the matriculation (entrance) examination at the Punjab University.[25] He won a full scholarship to the Government College University of Lahore, Punjab State, British India.[26] Salam was a versatile scholar, interested in Urdu and English literature in which he excelled. After a month in Lahore, he went to Bombay to Study. In 1947, he came back to Lahore.[27] But he soon picked up Mathematics as his concentration.[28] Salam's mentor and tutors wanted him to become an English teacher, but Salam decided to stick with Mathematics[29] As a fourth-year student there, he published his work on Srinivasa Ramanujan's problems in mathematics, and took his B.A. in Mathematics in 1944.[30] His father wanted him to join the Indian Civil Service (ICS).[29] In those days, the ICS was the highest aspiration for young university graduates and civil servants occupied a respected place in civil society.[29] Respecting his father's wish, Salam tried for the Indian Railways but did not qualify for the service as he failed the medical optical tests.[29] The results further concluded that Salam failed a mechanical test required by railway engineers to gain a commission in the Railways, and that he was too young to compete for the job.[29] Therefore, the Railways rejected Salam's job application.[29] While in Lahore, Salam went on to attend the graduate school of Government College University.[29] He received his MA in Mathematics from the Government College University in 1946.[24] That same year, he was awarded a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he completed a BA degree with Double First-Class Honours in Mathematics and Physics in 1949.[31] In 1950, he received the Smith's Prize from Cambridge University for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to Physics.[32] After finishing his degrees, Fred Hoyle advised Salam to spend another year in the Cavendish Laboratory to do research in experimental physics, but Salam had no patience for carrying out long experiments in the laboratory.[29] Salam returned to Jhang and renewed his scholarship and returned to the United Kingdom to do his doctorate.[29]

He obtained a PhD degree in theoretical physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.[33][34] His doctoral thesis titled "Developments in quantum theory of fields" contained comprehensive and fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics.[35] By the time it was published in 1951, it had already gained him an international reputation and the Adams Prize.[36] During his doctoral studies, his mentors challenged him to solve within one year an intractable problem which had defied such great minds as Paul Dirac and Richard Feynman.[29] Within six months, Salam had found a solution for the renormalization of meson theory. As he proposed the solution at the Cavendish Laboratory, Salam had attracted the attention of Hans Bethe, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Dirac.[29]

After receiving his doctorate in 1951, Salam returned to Lahore at the Government College University as a Professor of Mathematics where he remained till 1954. In 1952, he was appointed professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the neighbouring University of the Punjab. In the latter capacity, Salam sought to update the university curriculum, introducing a course in Quantum mechanics as a part of the undergraduate curriculum.[37] However, this initiative was soon reverted by the Vice-Chancellor, and Salam decided to teach an evening course in Quantum Mechanics outside the regular curriculum.[38] While Salam enjoyed a mixed popularity in the university, he began to supervise the education of students who were particularly influenced by him.[39] As a result, Riazuddin remained the only student of Salam who had the privilege to study under Salam at the undergraduate and post-graduate level in Lahore, and post-doctoral level in Cambridge University. In 1953, Salam was unable to establish a research institute in Lahore, as he faced strong opposition from his peers.[40] In 1954, Salam took fellowship and became one of the earliest fellows of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. As a result of 1953 Lahore riots, Salam went back to Cambridge and joined St John's College, and took a position as a professor of mathematics in 1954.[41] In 1957, he was invited to take a chair at Imperial College, London, and he and Paul Matthews went on to set up the Theoretical Physics Department at Imperial College.[42] As time passed, this department became one of the prestigious research departments that included well known physicists such as Steven Weinberg, Tom Kibble, Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, Riazuddin, and John Ward.

In 1957, Punjab University conferred Salam with an Honorary doctorate for his contribution in Particle physics.[43] The same year with help from his mentor, Salam launched a scholarship programme for his students in Pakistan. Salam retained strong links with Pakistan, and visited his country from time to time.[44] At Cambridge and Imperial College he formed a group of theoretical physicists, the majority of whom were his Pakistani students. At age 33, Salam became one of the youngest persons to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1959.[9] Salam took a fellowship at the Princeton University in 1959, where he met with J. Robert Oppenheimer[45] and to whom he presented his research work on neutrinos.[46] Oppenheimer and Salam discussed the foundation of electrodynamics, problems and their solution.[47] His dedicated personal assistant was Jean Bouckley. In 1980, Salam became a foreign fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences.[48]

Early in his career, Salam made an important and significant contribution in quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, including its extension into particle and nuclear physics. In his early career in Pakistan, Salam was greatly interested in mathematical series and their relation to physics. Salam had played an influential role in the advancement of nuclear physics, but he maintained and dedicated himself to mathematics and theoretical physics and focused Pakistan to do more research in theoretical physics.[29] However, he regarded nuclear physics (nuclear fission and nuclear power) as a non-pioneering part of physics as it had already "happened".[29] Even in Pakistan, Salam was the leading driving force in theoretical physics, with many scientists he continued to influence and encourage to keep their work on theoretical physics.[29]

Salam had a prolific research career in theoretical and high-energy physics.[49] Salam had worked on theory of the neutrino – an elusive particle that was first postulated by Wolfgang Pauli in the 1930s. Salam introduced chiral symmetry in the theory of neutrinos. The introduction of chiral symmetry played crucial role in subsequent development of the theory of electroweak interactions.[50] Salam later passed his work to Riazuddin, who made pioneering contributions in neutrinos. Salam introduced the massive Higgs bosons to the theory of the Standard Model, where he later predicted the existence of proton decay. In 1963, Salam published his theoretical work on the vector meson. The paper introduced the interaction of vector meson, photon (vector electrodynamics), and the renormalisation of vector mesons' known mass after the interaction.[51] In 1961, Salam began to work with John Clive Ward on symmetries and electroweak unification.[52][53] In 1964, Salam and Ward worked on a Gauge theory for the weak and electromagnetic interaction, subsequently obtaining SU(2) × U(1) model. Salam was convinced that all the elementary particle interactions are actually the gauge interactions.[54] In 1968, together with Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, Salam formulated the mathematical concept of their work. While in Imperial College, Salam, along with Glashow and Jeffrey Goldstone, mathematically proved the Goldstone's theorem, that a massless spin-zero object must appear in a theory as a result of spontaneous breaking of a continuous global symmetry.[54] In 1967-8, Salam and Weinberg incorporated the Higgs mechanism into Glashow's discovery, giving it a modern form in electroweak theory, and thus theorised half of the Standard Model.[55] In 1968, together with Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, Salam finally formulated the mathematical concept of their work.

Abdus Salam lectures on G.U.T. at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute

In 1966, Salam carried out pioneering work on a hypothetical particle. Salam showed the possible electromagnetic interaction between the Magnetic monopole and the C-violation, thus he formulated the magnetic photon.[56]

Following the publication of PRL Symmetry Breaking papers in 1964, Steven Weinberg and Salam were the first to apply the Higgs mechanism to electroweak symmetry breaking. Salam provided a mathematical postulation for the interaction between the Higgs boson and the electroweak symmetry theory.[57]

In 1972, Salam began to work with Indian-American theoretical physicist Jogesh Pati. Pati wrote to Salam several times expressing interest to work under Salam's direction, in response to which Salam eventually invited Pati to the ICTP seminar in Pakistan. Salam suggested to Pati that there should be some deep reason why the protons and electrons are so different and yet carry equal but opposite electric charge. Protons are composed of quarks, but the electroweak theory was concerned only with the electrons and neutrinos, with nothing postulated about quarks. If all of nature's ingredients could be brought together in one new symmetry, it might reveal a reason for the various features of these particles and the forces they feel. This led to the development of Pati–Salam model in particle physics.[58] In 1973, Salam and Jogesh Pati were the first to notice that since Quarks and Leptons have very similar SU(2) × U(1) representation content, they all may have similar entities.[59] They provided a simple realisation of the quark-lepton symmetry by postulating that lepton number was a fourth quark colour, dubbed "violet".[60]

Physicists had believed that there were four fundamental forces of nature: the gravitational force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the electromagnetic force. Salam had worked on the unification of these forces from 1959 with Glashow and Weinberg. While at Imperial College London, Salam successfully showed that weak nuclear forces are not really different from electromagnetic forces, and two could inter-convert. Salam provided a theory that shows the unification of two fundamental forces of nature, weak nuclear forces and the electromagnetic forces, one into another.[49] Glashow had also formulated the same work, and the theory was combined in 1966. In 1967, Salam proved the electroweak unification theory mathematically, and finally published the papers. For this achievement, Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. The Nobel Prize Foundation paid tribute to the scientists and issued a statement saying: "For their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current".[10] Salam took the Nobel Prize medal to the house of his former professor, Anilendra Ganguly, who taught him at the Sanatan Dharma College in Lahore, and placed the medal around his neck, stating "Mr Anilendra Ganguly this medal is a result of your teaching and love of mathematics that you instilled in me".[5] In the 1970s Salam continued trying to unify forces by including the strong interaction in a grand unified theory.

In early 1961, Salam approached President Khan to lay the foundations of Pakistan's first executive agency to co-ordinate space research.[64] By executive order on 16 September 1961 the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) was established with Salam founding director.[64] Salam immediately travelled to the United States, where he signed a space co-operation agreement with the US Government. In November 1961, NASA built the Flight Test Center in Balochistan Province. During this time, Salam visited the Pakistan Air Force Academy where he met with Air Commodore (Brigadier-General) Wladyslaw Turowicz – a Polish military scientist and an aerospace engineer.[71] Turowicz was made the first technical director of the space centre, and a programme of rocket testing ensued. In 1964, while in the US Salam visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and met with nuclear engineers Salim Mehmud and Tariq Mustafa.[72] Salam signed another agreement with the NASA which launched a programme to provide training to Pakistan's scientists and engineers.[72] Both nuclear engineers returned to Pakistan and were inducted into SUPARCO.[64]

Salam knew the importance of nuclear technology in Pakistan, for civilian and peaceful purposes.[73] But, according to his biographers, Salam played an ambiguous role in Pakistan's own atomic bomb project. As late as the 1960s, Salam made an unsuccessful proposal for the establishment of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, but it was deferred on economic grounds by Ayub Khan.[73] According to Rehman, Salam's influence in nuclear development was diminished as late as 1974, and he became critical of Bhutto's control over science.[73] But Salam personally did not terminate his connection with the scientists working in the theoretical physics division at PAEC.[74] As early as 1972–73, he had been a great advocate for the atomic bomb project,[75] but subsequently took a stance against it after he fell out with Bhutto over the Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan which declared the Ahmaddiya denomination to be non-Islamic.[75]

In 1965, Salam led the establishing of the nuclear research institute—PINSTECH.[76] In 1965, the plutonium Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor (PARR-I) went critical under Salams' leadership.[74] In 1973, Salam proposed the idea of establishing an annual college to promote scientific activities in the country to the Chairman of PAEC, Munir Khan, who accepted and fully supported the idea. This led to the establishment of the International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics and Contemporary Needs (INSC), where each year since 1976 scientists from all over the world come to Pakistan to interact with local scientists. The first annual INSC conference was held on advanced particle and nuclear physics.

In November 1971, Salam met with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his residence, and following Bhutto's advice, went to the United States to avoid the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.[77] Salam travelled to the US and returned to Pakistan with scientific literature about the Manhattan Project,[78] and calculations involving atomic bombs.[75] In 1972, the Government of Pakistan learned about the development status of the first atomic bomb completed under the Indian nuclear programme. On 20 January 1972, Salam, as Science Advisor to the President of Pakistan, managed and participated in a secret meeting of nuclear scientists with former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in Multan, known as the 'Multan Meeting'. At this meeting Bhutto orchestrated the development of a deterrence programme.[79][80] At the meeting, only I. H. Usmani protested, believing that the country had neither the facilities or talent to carry out such an ambitious and technologically remanding project, whilst Salam remained quiet.[81] Here, Bhutto entrusted Salam and appointed Munir Khan as Chairman of PAEC, and head of the atomic bomb program, as Salam had supported Khan.[82] A few months after the meeting, Salam, Khan, and Riazuddin, met with Bhutto in his residence where the scientists briefed him about the nuclear weapons program.[83] After the meeting, Salam established the 'Theoretical Physics Group' (TPG) in PAEC. Salam led groundbreaking work at TPG until 1974.[75][84][85]

An office was set up for Salam in the Prime Ministers' Secretariat by order of Bhutto.[73] Salam immediately started to motivate and invite scientists to begin work with PAEC in the development of fission weapons.[73] In December 1972, two theoretical physicists working at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics were asked by Salam to report to Munir Ahmad Khan, the scientific director of the program.[86] This marked the beginning of the TPG, reporting directly to Salam.[87] The TPG, in PAEC, was assigned to conduct research in fast neutron calculations, hydrodynamics (how the explosion produced by a chain reaction might behave), problems of neutron diffusion, and the development of theoretical designs of Pakistan's nuclear weapon devices.[88] Later, the TPG under Riazuddin began to directly report to Salam, and the work on the theoretical design of the nuclear weapon was completed in 1977.[89] In 1972, Salam formed the Mathematical Physics Group, under Raziuddin Siddiqui, that was charged, with TPG, with carrying out research in the theory of simultaneity during the detonation process, and the mathematics involved in the theory of nuclear fission.[90] Following India's surprise nuclear test —Pokhran-I – in 1974, Munir Ahmad Khan had called a meeting to initiate work on an atomic bomb. Salam was there and Muhammad Hafeez Qureshi was appointed head of the Directorate of Technical Development (DTD) in PAEC.[91]

The DTD was set up to co-ordinate the work of the various specialised groups of scientists and engineers working on different aspects of the atomic bomb.[83] The word "bomb" was never used in this meeting, but the participants fully understood what was being discussed.[83] In March 1974, Salam and Khan also established the Wah Group Scientist that was charged with manufacturing materials, explosive lenses and triggering mechanism development of the weapon.[92] Following the setting up of DTD, Salam, Riazuddin and Munir Ahmad Khan, visited the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) where they held talks with senior military engineers led by POF chairman Lieutenant-General Qamar Ali Mirza.[13] It was there that the Corps of Engineers built the Metallurgical Laboratory in Wah Cantonment in 1976.[93] Salam remained associated with the nuclear weapons programme until mid-1974, when he left the country after Ahmadi were declared non-Muslims by the Pakistani Parliament.[19] His own relations with Prime minister Bhutto fell out and turned into open hostility after the Ahmadiyya Community was declared as not-Islamic; he lodged a public and powerful protest against Bhutto regarding this issue and gave great criticism to Bhutto over his control over science.[75] In spite of this, Salam maintained close relations with the theoretical physics division at PAEC who kept him informed about the status of the calculations needed to calculate the performance of the atomic bomb, according to Norman Dombey.[75] After seeing Indian aggression, the Siachen conflict in Northern Pakistan, followed by India's Operation Brasstacks in Southern Pakistan, Salam again renewed his ties with senior scientists working in the atomic bomb projects, who had kept him informed about the scientific development of the program.[75] In the 1980s, Salam personally approved many appointments and a large influx of Pakistani scientists to the associateship program at ICTP and CERN, and engaged in research in theoretical physics with his students at the ICTP.[75]

In 2008, Indian scholar Ravi Singh noted in his book The Military Factor in Pakistan that, "in 1978, Abdus Salam with PAEC officials, paid a secret visit to China, and was instrumental in initiating industrial nuclear cooperation between the two countries."[81] Although he had left the country, Salam did not hesitate to advise the PAEC and Theoretical and Mathematical Physics Group on important scientific matters, and kept his close association with TPG and PAEC.[94]

Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim,[36] who saw his religion as a fundamental part of his scientific work. He once wrote that "the Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart."[36] During his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Physics, Salam quoted verses from the Quran and stated:

"Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection, Return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure? Then Return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze, Comes back to thee dazzled, aweary." (67:3–4) This, in effect, is the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze.[106]

In 1974, the Pakistan parliament made the Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan that declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslim. In protest, Salam left Pakistan for London. After his departure, he did not completely cut his ties to Pakistan, and kept a close association with the Theoretical Physics Group as well as academic scientists from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.[99]

The grave of Abdus Salam at Rabwah, Pakistan with the word 'Muslim' obscured.

Abdus Salam died on 21 November 1996 at the age of 70 in Oxford, England, from progressive supranuclear palsy.[107] His body was returned to Pakistan and kept in Darul Ziafat, where some 13,000 men and women visited to pay their last respects. Approximately 30,000 people attended his funeral prayers.[108]

Salam was buried in Bahishti Maqbara, a cemetery established by the Ahmadiyya Community at Rabwah, Punjab, Pakistan, next to his parents' graves. The epitaph on his tomb initially read "First Muslim Nobel Laureate". The Pakistani government removed "Muslim" and left only his name on the headstone. They are the only nation to officially declare that Ahmadis are non-Muslim.[109] The word "Muslim" was initially obscured on the orders of a local magistrate before moving to the national level.[110] Under Ordinance XX of 1984,[111][112] being an Ahmadi, he was considered a non-Muslim according to the definition provided in the Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan.[113]

His craving for nationalism is symbolized best by his wish to be buried in his own homeland... He loved his country and its soil. We projected him as a hero, a father, and role model for our young scientists...

— Masud Ahmad, on Salam's legacy, [16]

Salam's work in Pakistan has been far reaching and regarded as highly influential. He is remembered by his peers and students as the "father of Pakistan's school of Theoretical Physics" as well as Pakistan's science. Salam was a charismatic and iconic figure, a symbol among them of what they were working or researching toward in their fields.[7][15][16] His students, fellow scientists and engineers, remembered him as brilliant teacher, and engaging researcher who would also influence others to do the same.[49] Salam founded the Space Research Commission of and was its first director.[49] In 1998, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp to honour Salam as part of its "Scientists of Pakistan" series.[20] His alma mater, Government College Lahore, now a university, has the Abdus Salam Chair in Physics and Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences named after him.[114] The Abdus Salam Chair was also established in his honour at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering in the Lahore University of Management Sciences.[115] He made a significant contribution towards the 2012 success in the search for the Higgs boson.[116]

Salam has been commemorated by noted and prominent Pakistani scientists, who were also his students. Many scientists have recalled their college experiences. Ghulam Murtaza, a professor of plasma physics at the Government College University and student of Salam, wrote:

A commemorative stamp honouring Abdus Salam

When Dr. Salam was to deliver a lecture, the hall would be packed and although the subject was Particle Physics, his manner and eloquence was such as if he was talking about literature. When he finished his lectures, listeners would often burst into spontaneous applause and give him a standing ovation. People from all parts of the world would come to Imperial College and seek Dr. Salam's help. He would give a patient hearing to everyone including those who were talking nonsense. He treated everyone with respect and compassion and never belittled or offended anyone. Dr. Salam's strength was that he could "sift jewels from the sand".[117]

Ishfaq Ahmad, a lifelong friend of Salam recalls:

Dr Salam was responsible for sending about 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists from Pakistan, for PhD's to the best institutions in UK and USA.[117]

In August 1996 another lifelong friend, Munir Ahmad Khan, met Salam in Oxford. Khan, who headed the nuclear weapons and nuclear energy programmes, said:

My last meeting with Abdus Salam was only three months ago. His disease had taken its toll and he was unable to talk. Yet he understood what was said. I told him about the celebration held in Pakistan on his seventieth birthday. He kept staring at me. He had risen above praise. As I rose to leave he pressed my hand to express his feelings as if he wanted to thank everyone who had said kind words about him. Dr. Abdus Salam had deep love for Pakistan in spite of the fact that he was treated unfairly and indifferently by his own country. It became more and more difficult for him to come to Pakistan and this hurt him deeply. Now he has returned home finally, to rest in peace for ever in the soil that he loved so much. May be in the years to come we will rise above our prejudice and own him and give him, after his death, what we could not when he was alive. We Pakistanis may choose to ignore Dr. Salam, but the world at large will always remember him.[117]

However, Salam's legacy is often ignored in the Pakistani education system despite his achievements. According to the documentary 'Salam: The First ****** Nobel Laureate,' very few young Pakistani's have heard of him, and his name is not mentioned in Pakistani school textbooks.[118][119] In 2020, a group of students belonging to the State Youth Parliament desecrated an image of Salam that was present at a college in Gujranwala, while chanting slogans against the Ahmadiyya community.[120] This deliberate effort to stifle mention of Salam is attributed to Salam belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, who have faced state-sponsored discrimination since the 1970s.

Abdus Salam with Pakistani intellectual Syed Qasim Mahmood in 1986

In 1979, Salam was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Glashow and Weinberg, For their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current.[10] Salam received high civil and science awards from all over the world.[142] Salam is recipient of first high civil awards – Star of Pakistan (1959) and the Nishan-e-Imtiaz (1979) – awarded by the President of Pakistan for Salams' outstanding services to Pakistan.[142] The National Center for Physics (NCP) contains an Abdus Salam Museum dedicated to the life of Salam and his work as he discovered and formulated the Electroweak Theory.[12] Below is the list of awards that were conferred to Salam in his lifetime.

The Abdus Salam Award (also called the Salam Prize) is an award established to recognise high achievements and contributions in physical and natural sciences.[146] In 1979, Riazuddin, Fayyazuddin and Asghar Qadir met with Salam, and presented the idea of creating an award to appreciate scientists, resident in Pakistan, in their respective fields.[146] Salam donated the money he had won as he felt that he had no right use for the prize money.[147] It was endowed by Asghar Qadir, Riazuddin and Fayyazuddin in 1980, and it was first awarded in 1981. The winners are selected by a committee (consisted of Aghar Qadir, Fayyazuddin, Riazuddin, and others) of the Center for Advanced Mathematics and Physics (CAMP), which administers the award.[147] The Abdus Salam Medal is presented by the Third World Academy of Sciences in Trieste, Italy. First given in 1995, the award is presented to the people who have served the cause of science in the Developing World.[148] The Abdus Salam Shield of Honor in Mathematics was initiated by the National Mathematical Society of Pakistan to promote and recognize quality research in Mathematics in 2015. It was awarded for the first time in 2016.[149]

Salam's primary focus was research on the physics of elementary particles. His particular numerous groundbreaking contributions included:

• two-component neutrino theory and the prediction of the inevitable parity violation in weak interaction;
• gauge unification of weak and electromagnetic interactions, the unified force is called the "Electroweak" force, a name given to it by Salam, and which forms the basis of the Standard Model in particle physics;
• predicted the existence of weak neutral currents, and W and Z bosons, before their experimental discovery
• symmetry properties of elementary particles; unitary symmetry;
• renormalization of meson theories;
• gravity theory and its role in particle physics; two tensor theory of gravity and strong interaction physics;
• unification of electroweak with strong nuclear forces, grand unification theory;
• related prediction of proton-decay;
• Pati–Salam model, a grand unification theory;
• Supersymmetry theory, in particular formulation of Superspace and formalism of superfields in 1974;
• the theory of supermanifolds, as a geometrical framework for understanding supersymmetry, in 1974;[150]
• Supergeometry, the geometric basis for supersymmetry, in 1974;[151]
• application of the Higgs mechanism to 'electroweak symmetry breaking';
• prediction of the magnetic photon in 1966;[56]