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.
I am saying this, not only to remind those here tonight of this, but also for those in the Third World, who feel they have lost out in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, for lack of opportunity and resource.
Alfred Nobel stipulated that no distinction of race or colour will determine who received of his generosity. On this occasion, let me say this to those, whom God has given His Bounty. Let us strive to provide equal opportunities to all so that they can engage in the creation of Physics and science for the benefit of all mankind. This would exactly be in the spirit of Alfred Nobel and the ideals which permeated his life. Bless You!
Banquet Speech
Abdus Salam's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1979
Seven hundred and sixty years ago, a young Scotsman left his native glens to travel south to Toledo in Spain. His name was Michael, his goal to live and work at the Arab Universities of Toledo and Cordova, where the greatest of Jewish scholars, Moses bin Maimoun, had taught a generation before. Michael reached Toledo in 1217 AD. Once in Toledo, Michael formed the ambitious project of introducing Aristotle to Latin Europe, translating not from the original Greek, which he did not know, but from the Arabic translation then taught in Spain. From Toledo, Michael travelled to Sicily, to the Court of Emperor Frederick II.
Visiting the medical school at Salerno, chartered by Frederick in 1231, Michael met the Danish physician, Henrik Harpestraeng - later to become Court Physician of King Erik Plovpenning. Henrik had come to Salerno to compose his treatise on blood-letting and surgery. Henrik’s sources were the medical canons of the great clinicians of Islam, Al-Razi and Avicenna, which only Michael the Scot could translate for him.
Toledo’s and Salerno’s schools, representing as they did the finest synthesis of Arabic, Greek, Latin and Hebrew scholarship, were some of the most memorable of international assays in scientific collaboration. To Toledo and Salerno came scholars not only from the rich countries of the East and the South, like Syria, Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan, but also from developing lands of the West and the North like Scotland and Scandinavia. Then, as now, there were obstacles to this international scientific concourse, with an economic and intellectual disparity between different parts of the world. Men like Michael the Scot or Henrik Harpestraeng were singularities. They did not represent any flourishing schools of research in their own countries. With all the best will in the world their teachers at Toledo and Salerno doubted the wisdom and value of training them for advanced scientific research. At least one of his masters counselled young Michael the Scot to go back to clipping sheep and to the weaving of woollen cloth.
From Prof. Salam's Nobel Prize
lecture