Physicist shunned over 'God particle'ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The pioneering work of Abdus Salam, Pakistan's only Nobel laureate, helped lead to the apparent discovery of the subatomic "God particle" last week. But the late physicist is no hero at home, where his name has been stricken from school textbooks. Praise within Pakistan for Salam, who also guided the early stages of the country's nuclear program, faded decades ago as Muslim fundamentalists gained power. In 1979, Salam was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which theorizes how fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe. He died in 1996. Salam and Steven Weinberg, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize, independently predicted the existence of a subatomic particle now called the Higgs boson, named after a British physicist who theorized that it endowed other particles with mass, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist who once worked with Salam. It is also known as the "God particle" because its existence is vitally important toward understanding the early evolution of the universe. Physicists in Switzerland stoked worldwide excitement last Wednesday when they announced they have all but proven the particle's existence. This was done using the world's largest atom smasher near Geneva. |