Asghar Qadir

Asghar Qadir (اصغر قادر born 23 July 1946) HI, SI, FPAS, is a Pakistani mathematician and a prominent cosmologist, specialised in mathematical physics and physical cosmology.

Nowadays, he is widely considered one of the top mathematicians in Pakistan.

Asghar has played a prominent role in promoting Relativity in Pakistan.

To this day,

Qadir has made important and significant contributions to the fields of differential equations, theoretical cosmology and mathematical physics.

He is noted for his work in mathematics and mathematical physics, in particular his contributions to general relativity and cosmology.

He has mentored several graduate students throughout his career and also held important administrative positions, including being the Chairman of the Mathematics Department at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and later the Dean of Faculty of Natural Sciences at the same university.

Asghar Qadir was born in Simla (now Shimla) of British Indian Empire in 1946 to a middle-class family.

After the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Qadir's family migrated to Lahore, West Pakistan, where they were settled in a house provided by the Government of Pakistan.

He obtained his early education at Saint Mary's School (Rawalpindi).

He also attended Gordon College Rawalpindi, and Government College Lahore.

His father, Manzur Qadir was a Pakistani jurist in 1960s and served as foreign minister in President Ayub Khan's cabinet from 1958 to 1962.

Asghar is also the grandson of Sir Abdul Qadir.

His maternal grandfather, Sir Mian Fazl-i-Hussain was a notable politician from Punjab and founder of the Unionist Party (Punjab).

His mother, Asghari, was the daughter of Sir Mian Fazl-i-Hussain.

In 1963, Qadir travelled to United Kingdom on a Commonwealth scholarship which he applied and qualified for.

In 1963, Qadir attended the University of London and received his BSc(Hons) in Mathematics.

The same year, he became an A.R.S.C and also obtained his BS in Physics and DIC in Mathematics.

In 1969, Qadir pursued his MSc in Mathematics, followed by PhD in Mathematical Physics and Theory of relativity with the specialisation in Twistor theory, under the supervision of Roger Penrose in 1971.

He pioneered the mathematical contributions to the development of Special relativity and the twistor theory, which is the approach to the problems of fundamental physics pioneered by Roger Penrose.

However, in early 1971, he came back to Pakistan and joined Quaid-e-Azam University as a research associate.

Asghar was at University of Texas at Austin as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar during 1978/79 and 1986/87.

In these periods he worked with John Archibald Wheeler on Black Holes.

Asghar also worked with Remo Ruffini who discovered Cygnus X-1, the first Black Hole to be observed.

Abdus Salam involved Asghar in attempts to develop Science in Pakistan.

In particular, Asghar managed the Salam Prize for Young Pakistani Scientists from 1980 to 2005.

Qadir became a research associate and fellow at the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory (it is now known as Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL)) where he continued his research in the field of advanced computational mathematics.

There, he worked in a complex mathematical applications arise in the theory of nuclear fission at the ISIS neutron source – a neutron scattering facility that mathematically studies the structure and behaviour of nuclear materials in a fission process.

In 1982, he became associate professor and then subsequently became a chairman of the department of mathematics in 1986.

Professor Qadir founded the Center for Advanced Mathematics & Physics at the National University of Science and Technology, in 2004, served as its founding Director General until 2011 and as Professor Emeritus until 2019.

As of 2023, he is working as a visiting professor at Abdus Salam School of Mathematical Sciences, Government College University, Lahore.

He is considered one of the top mathematicians in Pakistan.

He has published numerous papers in the fields of Mathematical physics, Cosmology and Mathematics.

He has written and edited a number of books, mainly focusing on mathematical sciences and mathematical physics.

Qadir is author of the book "Relativity: An Introduction to the Special Theory" which has been translated in several different languages and is widely read by science students in colleges throughout Asia.

He has published more than 250 research papers.

He is the author of 12 books, 22 research level articles, 7 teaching journal papers, 32 popular articles, and 48 research preprints.

During his PhD, he was supervised by English mathematical physicist and Nobel Laureate (2020) Roger Penrose.

He has attended more than 100 International and National Conferences and Seminars in the fields of Mathematics, Physics, Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science.

Asghar Qadir comes from a family whose members played important role in the formative years of Pakistan.