When I translated Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ into Urdu as ‘Waqt ka Safar’ in 1990 for the Mashal Foundation, science felt like a vast ocean whose waves few in Pakistan dared to touch. The book was difficult to translate, but thanks to my background in electronics engineering and a lifelong fascination with science, the effort succeeded.
It has since gone through multiple reprints. That project, edited by historian Dr Mubarak Ali and supported by Mashal’s chairman Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy and vice-chairman Aslam Azhar, sought to bring modern physics and cosmology into the linguistic and cultural reach of Urdu readers. At that time, what we called ‘modern science’ already seemed dazzling enough but, three and a half decades later, it has leapt into an entirely new dimension. My fascination with science has endured. Every October, I eagerly await the announcement of the Nobel Prizes.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for their pioneering work on quantum tunnelling in superconducting circuits, marks a milestone as transformative as any since Hawking’s book first appeared. It honours the experiments that made quantum behaviour visible at the human scale, laying the groundwork for quantum computing -- a field that now promises to redefine information, intelligence and innovation. Back in 1990, physics for most people still meant Newton’s motion and Einstein’s relativity. The atom was familiar, the Big Bang was fashionable and computers were still viewed as accessories of the West.
Pakistan was then only beginning to glimpse the digital age. Today, the conversation has moved from describing the universe to engineering it at its most fundamental level. The Nobel laureates accomplished what once sounded impossible: they brought the ghostly laws of the quantum world -- the realm of atoms and electrons -- into the macroscopic world of circuits we can hold in our hands. Using superconducting materials cooled close to absolute zero, they built devices in which electrical currents behave as if they were single quantum particles, capable of existing in multiple states and even tunnelling through barriers.
To a non-specialist, quantum theory can sound like fiction. A century ago, physicists discovered that nature behaves very differently at the smallest scales. Particles like electrons or photons can act both as waves and as discrete units. They can exist in two or more states simultaneously, a phenomenon called superposition, and only when we measure them do they ‘collapse’ into one outcome. The universe, at its core, is governed not by certainty but by probability. Among its strangest consequences is quantum tunnelling. Imagine a ball rolling toward a hill. If it lacks the energy to climb, classical physics says it will roll back.
But in the quantum world, the ball has a tiny chance of simply appearing on the other side, as if it passed through the hill. That is tunnelling, a direct result of the wave-like nature of matter. The effect is small, but it powers nuclear fusion in the stars, makes flash memory possible, and now forms the basis of quantum circuits that can process and store information in revolutionary ways. Clarke, Devoret and Martinis succeeded in showing that tunnelling isn’t confined to atoms; it can be engineered and controlled in laboratory devices. This discovery transformed quantum physics from theory into technology.
It proved that the peculiar principles of the quantum world could be built into machines that promise to solve certain problems exponentially faster than any classical computer could. Quantum computing, once a metaphor for impossibility, is now a frontier of national investment. Google, IBM and other companies already operate experimental processors, while governments from the US to China are pouring billions into ‘quantum missions’ that will shape their economies, defence systems and industries for decades. This Nobel is therefore not just a scientific honour; it is a signal that quantum science has entered the practical, strategic age.
For Pakistan and the wider South Asian region, this should be a moment of reflection. The scientific world has shifted from asking ‘why’ the universe behaves as it does to asking ‘how’ we can make use of those laws. Yet our education systems remain trapped in the 19th century. Schools still worship rote learning and punish curiosity. Laboratories are poorly equipped and success in academia often depends not on discovery but on the quantity of published papers.
When I worked on Hawking’s translation, my hope was that such books would ignite curiosity and intellectual rebellion and young readers would see that the universe is not ruled by superstition, but by discoverable, testable laws. Yet three decades later, superstition thrives where curiosity should grow. The number of housing societies across Pakistan increases annually, while the number of new research laboratories and manufacturing units remains relatively unchanged. The country produces thousands of degree-holders who can cite foreign papers but cannot build a simple instrument.
This year’s Nobel is a reminder that progress in science is never automatic; it is a product of culture. The US, Europe and China are not leaders because their students are inherently smarter than ours, but because their systems reward imagination and failure. They invest in laboratories, value collaboration, share data and protect intellectual honesty. They treat science not as a slogan but as a civic virtue.
If Pakistan wants to join the 21st century rather than watch it pass, it must reform its education and research ecosystems from the ground up. That means encouraging children to ask uncomfortable questions. Linking universities with industries that build rather than
merely trade, and valuing teachers and researchers who make functioning prototypes instead of recycling empty publications. It means funding shared laboratories that stay open beyond office hours, where students learn by doing rather than memorising.
It means measuring success by how effectively we solve real problems, rather than by how many degrees or conferences we can list. Above all, it means protecting the freedom to think. Without intellectual freedom, there can be no scientific progress. Quantum physics itself carries a moral message.
In the quantum world, uncertainty is not a flaw—it is part of nature’s design. Progress depends on embracing that uncertainty, on daring to test and revise our assumptions. Pakistan’s system, by contrast, punishes uncertainty. It rewards conformity and reverence, not doubts and discussions. But creativity flourishes only where the unknown is treated as a challenge, not a threat. A society afraid of questions will never produce new answers. There is a quiet beauty in the metaphor of tunnelling—the act of crossing a barrier that seems impossible to penetrate, appearing on the other side without the energy to climb over.
Our social and educational barriers feel insurmountable. Yet, like in the quantum world, the improbable is not impossible. With the right conditions -- freedom, integrity, mentorship and patience -- young Pakistani minds can also ‘tunnel’ through. We can cross from superstition to science, from imitation to invention, from inertia to innovation. Since the days of ‘A
Brief History of Time’, science has not only advanced; it has redefined what it means to know and to create. It has fused curiosity with technology, theory with craftsmanship and individual insight with shared infrastructure.
The 2025 Nobel in Physics is more than a reward for three brilliant scientists; it is a celebration of imagination made tangible, of thought turned into hardware. It shows that reason, when disciplined by creativity, can turn impossibility into practice. Pakistan’s tragedy is not a lack of talent, but a lack of faith in that talent. We celebrate poets in Malaysia and mystics in Turkey, but ignore our intellectuals and inventors at home. We build monuments to rulers and warriors, not to teachers and experimenters. We recite the virtues of education but starve our schools of resources and respect.
The real gap between the developed and the developing worlds is not material but mental. It is the distance between minds that explore and minds that obey. Thirty-five years after ‘Waqt ka Safar’, I have come to believe that Pakistan’s real frontier is not economic or military; it is cognitive.
The new Nobel proves that human curiosity can bridge the smallest and the largest scales, from electrons to circuits, from theory to technology. If a handful of patient physicists can make quantum laws visible, surely a nation of 250 million can make learning meaningful. The barriers before us may look immovable -- but then, so did the walls of the quantum world, until someone dared to tunnel through.
The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts @NaazirMahmood and can be reached at: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk
