The tenth Abdus Salam Memorial Lecture was delivered on the Syed Babar Ali College of Science and Engineering, LUMS, by Harvard physicist Subir Sachdev, who highlighted the scientific legacy of Pakistan’s Nobel laureate Abdus Salam and ongoing challenges in understanding quantum supplies.
The lecture is a part of an annual sequence honouring Dr Abdus Salam, whose pioneering work on the unification of electromagnetic and weak forces earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. Audio system recalled his tutorial journey from Lahore to the College of Cambridge and his institution of the Worldwide Centre for Theoretical Physics, which stays a significant international hub for theoretical physics.
Prof Subir Sachdev, in his keynote deal with, mirrored on his private interactions with Dr Abdus Salam, together with a go to to Salam’s preserved research in London, the place unique manuscripts and notes illustrated the iterative improvement of electroweak concept. He described Salam’s work as combining deep theoretical perception with persistent refinement over time.
The lecture centered on superconductivity, a quantum phenomenon by which sure supplies conduct electrical energy with zero resistance at extraordinarily low temperatures. First noticed in 1911, the sector noticed main advances with the invention of high-temperature superconductors within the Eighties, notably copper-based cuprates.
Prof Sachdev famous that these supplies maintain promise for functions comparable to lossless energy transmission, highly effective electromagnets, and transport applied sciences, whereas the basic mechanism behind high-temperature superconductivity stays unresolved.
He mentioned present theoretical frameworks primarily based on unbiased electron fashions are inadequate to explain the strongly correlated behaviour of electrons in these methods, pointing as a substitute to quantum entanglement as central to their collective states.
The lecture additional highlighted how ideas developed in condensed matter physics have influenced broader areas of theoretical physics, together with quantum gravity and black gap dynamics.
Prof Sachdev cautioned that predicting superconducting transition temperatures from first rules stays one of many main open challenges in physics, however expressed optimism that continued analysis might result in vital breakthroughs.
The occasion concluded with renewed emphasis on Dr Abdus Salam’s scientific legacy and his enduring affect on physics analysis in Pakistan and internationally.
