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Product details
- ISBN 9780199208463
- Weight: 591g
- Dimensions: 144 x 223mm
- Publication Date: 24 Apr 2008
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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This book presents a biography of Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize for Science (Physics 1979), who was nevertheless excommunicated and branded as a heretic in his own country. His achievements are often overlooked, even besmirched. Realizing that the whole world had to be his stage, he pioneered the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, a vital focus of Third World science which remains as his monument. A staunch Muslim, he was ashamed of the decline of science in the heritage of Islam, and struggled doggedly to restore it to its former glory. Undermined by his excommunication, these valiant efforts were doomed.
Physicist turned science writer, Gordon Fraser aims to convey difficult concepts without compromising the underlying science. After a first-class degree in physics and mathematics and while working towards his PhD in theoretical physics at London's Imperial College in the mid-1960s, he wrote short-story fiction as a hobby. By 1970, it was clear that he was not cut out for scientific research, and he spun together two very different strands of interest by becoming a reporter on a weekly UK newspaper for the computer industry. He later returned to science as an in-house editor at major laboratories. Working in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1980 - 2002 he was Editor of the CERN Courier, the monthly magazine of the international high energy physics community. He has been a visiting lecturer in Science Communication at several UK universities.
