After finishing his degrees, Fred Hoyle advised Salam to spend another year in the Cavendish Laboratory to do research in experimental physics, but Salam had no patience for carrying out long experiments in the laboratory. In 1950, he received the Smith's Prize from Cambridge University for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to Physics.
That same year, he was awarded a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he completed a BA degree with Double First-Class Honours in Mathematics and Physics in 1949. He received his MA in Mathematics from the Government College University in 1946. While in Lahore, Salam went on to attend the graduate school of Government College University. Therefore, the Railways rejected Salam's job application. The results further concluded that Salam failed a mechanical test required by railway engineers to gain a commission in the Railways, and that he was too young to compete for the job. Respecting his father's wish, Salam tried for the Indian Railways but did not qualify for the service as he failed the medical optical tests. In those days, the ICS was the highest aspiration for young university graduates and civil servants occupied a respected place in civil society. His father wanted him to join the Indian Civil Service (ICS). Salam's mentor and tutors wanted him to become an English teacher, but Salam decided to stick with Mathematics As a fourth-year student there, he published his work on Srinivasa Ramanujan's problems in mathematics, and took his B.A. But he soon picked up Mathematics as his concentration. After a month in Lahore, he went to Bombay to Study. Salam was a versatile scholar, interested in Urdu and English literature in which he excelled.
He won a full scholarship to the Government College University of Lahore, Punjab State, British India. At age 14, Salam scored the highest marks ever recorded for the matriculation (entrance) examination at the Punjab University. Salam very early established a reputation throughout Punjab and later at the University of Cambridge for outstanding brilliance and academic achievement. St John's College, Cambridge is where Salam studied. Up until shortly before his death, Salam continued to contribute to physics, and to advocate for the development of science in third-world countries. Salam heavily contributed to the rise of Pakistani physics within the global physics community. As a teacher and science promoter, Salam is remembered as a founder and scientific father of mathematical and theoretical physics in Pakistan during his term as the chief scientific advisor to the president.
With his student, Riazuddin, Salam made important contributions to the modern theory on neutrinos, neutron stars and black holes, as well as the work on modernising quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Salam made a major contribution in quantum field theory and in the advancement of Mathematics at Imperial College London. Salam's notable achievements include the Pati–Salam model, magnetic photon, vector meson, Grand Unified Theory, work on supersymmetry and, most importantly, electroweak theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1998, following the country's Chagai-I nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of "Scientists of Pakistan", to honour the services of Salam. In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Parliament of Pakistan passed unanimously a parliamentary bill declaring members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, to which Salam belonged, non-Muslims. for this, he is viewed as the "scientific father" of this program. He was the founding director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG). Salam contributed to numerous developments in theoretical and particle physics in Pakistan. Played a major and influential role in the development of the country's science infrastructure. Salam was scientific advisor to the Ministry of Science and Technology in Pakistan from 1960 to 1974, a position from which he He was the first Pakistani and the first from an Islamic country to receive a Nobel Prize in science and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize, after Anwar Sadat of Egypt. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. Mohammad Abdus Salam NI(M) SPk ( / s æ ˈ l æ m/ pronounced 29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996) was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and a Nobel Prize laureate.