Science and technology

Science and technology

Main articles: Science and technology in Pakistan and List of Pakistani inventions and discoveries

Abdus Salam won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to electroweak interaction. He was the first Muslim to win a Nobel prize in science.

Atta-ur-Rahman won the UNESCO Science Prize for pioneering contributions in chemistry in 1999, the first Muslim to win it.

Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was a Pakistani organic chemist who pioneered research on pharmacology use of various domestic plants. He was a member of the Royal Society.

Mahbub ul Haq was a Pakistani game theorist who’s work led to the Human Development Index. He had a profound effect on the field of international development.

Development on science and technology plays an influential role in Pakistan’s infrastructure and helped the country to reach out to the world. Every year, scientists from around the world are invited by the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and the Pakistan Government to participate in the International Nathiagali Summer College on Physics. Pakistan hosted an international seminar on Physics in Developing Countries for International Year of Physics 2005. Pakistani theoretical physicist Abdus Salam won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the electroweak interaction. Influential publications and the critical scientific works in the advancement of mathematics, biology, economics, computer science, and genetics have been produced by the Pakistani scientists at the domestic and international standings.

In chemistry, Salimuzzaman Siddiqui was the first Pakistani scientist to bring the therapeutic constituents of the neem tree to the attention of natural products chemists. Pakistani neurosurgeon Ayub Ommaya invented the Ommaya reservoir, a system for treatment of brain tumours and other brain conditions. Scientific research and development plays a pivotal role in Pakistani universities, collaboration with the government sponsored national laboratories, science parks, and co-operation with the industry. Abdul Qadeer Khan regarded as the founder of HEU-based Gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment program for Pakistan’s integrated atomic bomb project. He founded and established the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, being both its senior scientist and the Director-General until his retirement in 2001, and he was an early and vital figure in other science projects. Apart from participating in Pakistan’s atomic bomb project, he made major contributions in molecular morphology, physical martensite, and its integrated applications in condensed and material physics.

In 2010, Pakistan was ranked 43rd in the world in terms of published scientific papers. The Pakistan Academy of Sciences, a strong scientific community, plays an influential and vital role in formulating the science policies recommendation to the government.

The 1960s era saw the emergence of the active space program led by the SUPARCO that produced advances in domestic rocketry, electronics, and aeronomy. The space program recorded a few notable feats and achievements. The successful launch of its first rocket into space made Pakistan the first South Asian country to have achieved such a task. Successfully producing and launching the nation’s first space satellite in 1990, Pakistan became the first Muslim country and second South Asian country to put a satellite into space.

Pakistan witnessed a fourfold increase in its scientific productivity in the past decade surging from approximately 2,000 articles per year in 2006 to more than 9,000 articles in 2015. Making Pakistan’s cited article’s higher than the BRIC countries put together.

—Thomson Reuters’s Another BRIC in the Wall 2016 report

As an aftermath of the 1971 war with India, the clandestine crash program developed atomic weapons in a fear and to prevent any foreign intervention, while ushering in the atomic age in the post cold war e ra. Competition with India and tensions eventually led Pakistan’s decision of conducting underground nuclear tests in 1998; thus becoming the seventh country in the world to successfully develop nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the only Muslim country that maintains a research station in Antarctica and it has maintained a presence there since 1991. After establishing an Antarctic program, Pakistan is one of the small number of countries that have an active research presence in Antarctica. The Antarctic program oversees two summer research stations on the continent and plans to open another base, which will operate all year round. Energy consumption by computers and usage has grown since the 1990s when the PCs were introduced; Pakistan has over 20 million internet users and is ranked as one of the top countries that have registered a high growth rate in internet penetration, as of 2011. Key publications has been produced by Pakistan, and domestic software development has gained a lot international praise.

Overall, it has the 27th largest population of internet users in the world. Since the 2000s, Pakistan has made significant amount of progress in supercomputing, and various institutions offers research in parallel computing. Pakistan government reportedly spends ₨. 4.6 billion on information technology projects, with emphasis on e-government, human resource and infrastructure development.