Article: Physics and High Technology
Modern high technology is the base for development in the industrialised countries. This is where the third world countries lack -- the gap getting wider since they are deficient in the fundamental science which forms the backbone of technological development. Mere transfer of technology would not help in developing a sustainable growth since the underlying scientific knowledge would not be there to support this growth. Realising the importance of these fields of physics which form the core of modern technology, the Second College was devoted to in-depth lectures and discussions on the topics covering both fundamental and applied aspects of technological and industrial development, condensed matter physics, semi-conductors, material science, surface phenomenon, super conductivity, polymer physics, crystal growth, and low temperature physics.
Super conductivity and its applications to fundamental research in physics was the topic discussed in the First College. Prof. Yaqub emphasised the experimental and applied aspects of this field. The intriguing and exciting phenomenon of high temperature superconductivity, discovered in 1987 pointed to an important discovery of this century. Prof. Silbernagel gave an interesting talk on this phenomenon during 12th College. The first week's proceedings of the next year, the 13th College were entirely devoted to this subject where rapid discoveries during last two years jolted the scientific community around the world and also earned the Nobel prize of the year. R.N. Shelton, H.Koinuma, S.S. Xie and Shahid A. Shaheen discussed various aspects of superconductors and associated problems of material science. Recent developments in high temperature oxide superconductors were also highlighted during 16th College by Dr. Jamil A.A. Khan.
The participants of 2nd College had the opportunity of hearing about tunnel diodes from its inventor himself, namely the Nobel laureate Leo Esaki. He gave a broad view of semiconductor devices in historical perspective and indicated their applications. His concluding lectures overviewed the current research concerning the development of semiconductors super-lattices, thus bringing the audience at par with very frontiers of semi-conductor devices physics. Lectures of Prof. E.H. Rhoderick followed which were complementary to Dr. Esaki's in as much as the vast spectrum of superconductor devices namely the p-n junction and the metal semi-conductors. During 15th College, Dr. Zafar Iqbal reviewed recent advances in semiconductor materials.
The focus of many Colleges have been various topics ofmaterial science Mechanical properties of materials, formation of alloys and radiation damage have been discussed in various Colleges by K.J. Miller, W.J.Pardee, J.J. Lewadowski, Raza Abbaschian, Robert Cook, F.Gautier, Peter Ernest and B.L. Eyre.
The scientific program of Fifteenth College centered around the development of advanced materials and the tailoring of their strength and toughness properties. The emphasis of the series of lectures was on light weight materials such as light alloys, composites and advanced Ceramics. Prof. F.H.Froes, M.H. Lewis and J.J.Lewandowski discussed various topics. A workshop on characterisation of materials was also held.
Surface studies of materials have been discussed by such eminent faculty members like E.Tosatti, Michael Wortis, R. Pincus, C.S. Fadley and N. March. Certain topics under low temperature physics have been discussed by W.Fairbank, M.Yaqub and W.A. Phillips.
It was during the Second College that we had the honour of having Prof. P.G. De Gennes on our faculty. He gave a very interesting lecture course on polymer physics which was new to the most of the participants but which has a nice overlap between physical chemist and physicists. Prof De Gennes was later awarded the Nobel prize in 1990.
On the Physics and the frontiers of knowledge aspects of the scientific program of INSC, the fields such as elementary particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology general relativity have their importance in the educational concern of the science and in the long run for the scientific effort of a country. Elementary particle physics is the area which has been the theme of many colleges and attracted many important contributors to the development of this field. In the very First College, Professor Abdus Salam, in his semi-popular lecture gave a lucid account of the status of the particle physics and the unification of weak and electromagnetic forces, discovery of weak neutral currents and a new family of particles which might be indicative of new quantum numbers. He stressed the point that the concept of elementary constituents versus composite particles is less important than the idea of basic charges such as electric charge, flavours and colours. He gave analogies with some concepts used in general relativity and emphasised that nature is not economical of structures but only of principles of universal applicability. Let us recall how he concluded his lecture titled "Probing into the heart of the matter".
"This thought motivates my concluding remarks about what physics can and cannot do. Physics can unify disparate phenomena. Last century saw the great unification, in the hands of Faraday and Maxwell, of magnetic and electrical phenomena. We believe that we have achieved a unified understanding of weak forces with electromagnetism and possibly of these with the strong nuclear physics. Physics when correctly and deeply understood can lead to staggering quantitative predictions and agreements (1:109 or 1:1012). But what physics cannot do is to explain. Physics does explain for the time being but by assuming some concepts as basics. The explanations will again be in terms of a certain unquestioned truth ---- which in their turn will be questioned by the next generation. In this sense, physics will never end and we shall probe and probe for ever".
The probe continues and the later experiments proved his unification theory and the great scientist was honored with Nobel Prize in physics. Professor B.W. Lee, Prof. Nuyts, were the other speakers. Again during the Fifth College, we had a distinguished faculty for lectures on particle physics---Nobel laureates S.C.C. Ting and C.N. Yang. Prof. N.S. Craig, Fayyazuddin, Ahmed Ali, Paolo Bundirich, Qaiser Shafi, M.D. Scadron and A. Zee were the other leading scientists who have been associated with our faculty to discuss the topics at the frontiers of particle physics.
The College has also been active in arranging lectures in general relativity, astrophysics and cosmology and its interface with particle physics. We had the honour of having Professor R. Ruffini with us during first, second and fifth colleges. He gave a very stimulating and interesting series of lectures covering the frontiers of physics involving Neutron Stars, Black holes and cosmology. In his thought provoking lecture on "Astrophysics, general relativity and cosmology", he opined: "........I feel that fundamental knowledge is always necessary for all countries--- whether they be developed or developing. The right to think for ourselves cannot be delegated to anybody else. The developing countries can no more afford to be intellectually dependent on the developed countries than they can afford to be economically dependent.". Dr. Fang Lizhi, Li Qibi, Xie Guangzhong and L. Halpern were the other speakers.
It was during 10th College that Prof. W. Saggewiss presented the audience with a rare treat of observing through a telescope, the spectacular view of the night sky. It was simply thrilling to see the Saturn with its rings, Jupiter and its moons and other objects like red giants binaries and moon craters. These informal sessions lasted till late at night and naturally led to the discussions about the origin of the solar system, the birth, evolution and death of stars and other heavenly objects. These sessions were highly stimulating and generated among many the desire to learn more about the universe we live in. He lectured on observational astronomy. Prof. Pietro Giannons explained the theory of evolution of stars, binaries and stellar clusters while Asghar Qadir gave a review of dark matter in the universe.
The Supernova explosion in 1987 , a spectacular event having important implications not only for our universe but also about fundamental constituents of matter, was the focus of attention during 13th college. Prof. John Ellis explained the implications in astrophysics and particle physics. Prof. P.L. Bernacca, M.S. Turnr, Dr. Ahmed Ali, C. Rouse, and Fang Li Zhi were other speakers.
The 15th College was devoted to accelerator physics. The design and fabrication of different types of accelerators and ion sources and the physics which could be derived from the study of spin or the modification of properties of solids on interaction with ion beam was highlighted by G. Tungate, H. Winter, J.P. Biersack and C.J. Lister were the speakers. A panel discussion followed, emphasising indigenisation in the Third World countries in the development of low energy accelerators.
A new perspective of Atomic Physics has been introduced as a quest for many-body effects in small systems. The lasers have found widespread applications in technology , for example in communications, in isotopic separation, medicine etc. A full week's deliberations during 12th College were devoted to discussions relating to Atomic, molecular and laser physics. The major topics discussed were high Rydberg states of atoms and molecules, atomic structure theory, many body atomic theory, laser-material interaction, high resolution laser spectroscopy etc. We had a distinguished faculty comprising J.P. Connerade, M.L. Ginter, W.R. Johnson, R.R. Freeman, C.R. Stroud, S.R.J. Brueck, E. Tiemann and H. Welling. Interestingly, Prof. H. Elling also elucidated various aspects of lasers during First College as well.
A two day workshop on laser source and spectroscopy was also held.
Dr G. leuchs and Prof. R.W. Hellworth were the speakers who reviewed laser technology in later colleges. Various topics in photo electronics were discussed by J.D. McGee during the First College while Dr. Atique Mufti lectured on principles and ingredients of photovoltaic technology and its applications.
Various topics under nuclear and reactor physics were focussed for deliberations on many occasions. Recognising the needs of the scientists from developing countries for a review of latest discoveries in this field, the scientific program of one week's duration was devoted for this purpose during the 12th College. We had a distinguished faculty comprising Prof. O. Schult, G.A. Miller and Pervez Hoodbhoy. Many recent developments in the field were discussed. Nuclear polarisation phenomenon was discussed by Prof. M.J. Moravscik during the Third College. Dr. Ugo Fairnelli and Prof. L. Murray discussed topics relating to reactor physics.
Photovoltaic technology was one of the topics the discussed during Tenth College. Principles and ingredients of photovoltaic were discussed by Dr. A. Mufti.
Nuclear data plays a very vital role in reactor design calculations, fuel management and dosimetry etc. An excellent review of nuclear data evaluation and compilation was provided by Dr. J.J. Schmidt from IAEA, during the 9th College. Dr. Kolb and Dr. S.M. Qaim were the other speakers.
Solid State Nuclear Track Detectors (SSNTD) is a fast emerging useful technique finding applications in various fields. Nuclear track studies of meteorites, their ages and radiation histories were reviewed by Dr. S. A. Durrani during the Tenth College. Dr. H. A. Khan discussed their applications in Nuclear physics, anthropology and space studies.
Computational physics has acquired an important role in theoretical mode of research with the revolutionary developments in numerical techniques and computers. Apart from revolutionising the signal manipulation work of the experimental physics and the model manipulation capabilities of theoretical physics, computational physics has opened up whole new vistas of basic and applied research. Simulation methods involving molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo techniques etc. have played a leading role. One week's programme during the Seventeenth College was entirely devoted to discussions on recent developments in computational physics and related topics and applications. We had a very distinguished faculty comprising such advanced workers in the fields of neural network models and artificial intelligence like J. W. Clark and Dai RuWai. Simulation techniques, variational methods and molecular dynamics and multigrid methods were discussed by J. D. Lewins, T.S. Rahman, S. Murad and D.J.E. Callaway.
The theme of the 9th College was finite element methods and Dr. N. Z. Nashed, K. Morgan and D. Kolb lectured on various topics. Other faculty members who lectured on related topics include K.V. Foberls, S. Kirkpatrick, S Atzeni and Y.Y. Xiang.
Much of the development in modern day science and technology is attributed to computers. Various topics relating to softwares, PCs, interpersonal communications, microprocessors and applied system analysis were covered. We had Prof. P. C. Poole, Niedermeyer, A. Jeschke, Stroud, Ben Segal, G. Ehret and Castigare as our faculty members.