Noor Muhammad Butt

Noor Muhammad Butt (Urdu: نور محمد بٹ); b. 3 June 1936), , also known as N. M. Butt, is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and professor of physics at the Preston University who is known for his research publications in understanding the gamma-rays burst, Mössbauer effect, diffraction, later the nanotechnology.

Besides teaching courses in topics involving the modern physics, his career has spent working in branches of physics at the national laboratory in Nilore and has authored several college textbooks in physics based on his research, and presently serving as the chairman of the Institute of Nano Science and Technology at the Preston University.

Biography

Butt was born in Sialkot, Punjab, British India on 3 June 1936. His graduation was noted in the local university press when he was conferred with the Roll of Honor by the university.

In 1963, he went to attend the Birmingham University in England on Commonwealth Scholarship for his doctoral studies, and carried out his doctoral studies under Dr. Philip Burton Moon. He studied topics in solid state physics and kinetic theory of solids under Rudolf Peierls while conducting his doctoral studies on the diffraction with Mössbauer effect through the spectroscopy techniques under Dr. William Burchman. In 1965, Butt successfully defended his doctoral thesis and was conferred with the PhD in nuclear physics under the supervision of Philip Burton Moon from the Birmingham University in England. In 1978, Butt passed over his work in understanding neutron applications when he was appointed director of Nuclear Physics Division where he became interested in the nuclear binding energy in the nucleus, the isotopic island of stability, phonon and the Mössbauer effect. In 1984, Butt was appointed as associate director of the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, and promoted to its director in 1991. In 1999, he was of the opinion to favor the development of the less destructive neutron bomb as opposed to the much larger blast radius guaranteed by the hydrogen-based design of nuclear weapons.

In 1999, Butt eventually left the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology when he retired as first "Scientist Emeritus", and subsequently returned to academia to teach courses on physics. Collaboration between Butt and O'Connor established the scientific confirmation of Ivar Waller's Theory of Phonons at the Bragg diffraction peaks using the Mössbauer spectroscopy from LiF's single crystals. In addition, he also served as the chairman of Pakistan Science Foundation until 2010 where the PSF initiated several awareness programs on nanotechnology in Pakistan.

In 2010 interview with the news media, Butt also vehemently dismissed the American concerns about his nation's atomic weapons fall into the hands of terrorists as "farce claim" noting that they would be unable to select sequence targets to launch the missiles since they don't have required scientific education to understand the locking and triggering mechanism to activate nuclear devices.

Publications and honors