Pakistan does not lack scientific heroes; it lacks the institutional memory required to remember them. We repeatedly celebrate borrowed technological achievements while allowing the stories of Pakistanis who actually built laboratories, introduced measurement standards and returned from promising careers abroad to serve their country to disappear behind official walls.
One such story is growing—or once grew prominently—inside the premises of the National Physical and Standards Laboratory in Islamabad: a sapling descended from the original Newton apple tree, presented in recognition of the laboratory’s development and the scientific relationship established between Pakistan’s NPSL and Britain’s National Physical Laboratory.
Behind that tree stands the work of Mr Khalid Islam, the Pakistani scientist who led NPSL from 2003 to 2008, developed its primary measurement capabilities, strengthened its international relationships and helped establish the scientific infrastructure through which Pakistan could maintain trustworthy national standards. He is also my father, and this account preserves a history witnessed, lived and narrated by the man who performed the work.
The Newton sapling was not merely a ceremonial plant. It was an acknowledgement of Pakistani scientific competence.
Khalid Islam and the building of NPSL
Mr Khalid Islam served as Director of the National Physical and Standards Laboratory between 2003 and 2008. As a founding scientist of NPSL, he contributed extensively to developing its primary laboratories and expanding its testing, calibration, standardization, SI-unit realization, training and technical consultancy services.
The laboratory was Pakistan’s National Metrology Institute, carrying a responsibility far greater than its relatively modest public profile suggested. It represented Pakistan within the international measurement community and built the traceability chains through which local measurements could be compared with internationally recognized standards.
Pakistan has been a Member State of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, or BIPM, since 12 July 1973. NPSL, now known internationally as the National Metrology Institute of Pakistan, formed the technical foundation of that participation.
Metrology may sound distant from ordinary life, but it silently governs almost everything a modern country produces. When an electrical meter records voltage, a pharmaceutical laboratory measures chemical quantities, a telecom system depends upon precise frequency, or a Pakistani manufacturer certifies the dimensions of an export product, someone must establish that the underlying measurement is accurate.
That is the world in which Khalid Islam worked: a world where mistakes are measured in fractions invisible to the human eye but capable of influencing entire industries.
| NPSL capability | National importance | Practical Pakistani impact |
|---|---|---|
| Primary measurement standards | Establishes authoritative national references | Ensures measurements remain consistent across Pakistan |
| Instrument calibration | Verifies the accuracy of technical equipment | Reduces industrial errors and improves safety |
| SI-unit traceability | Links local measurements to international units | Strengthens export and laboratory credibility |
| Time and frequency standards | Maintains highly precise timing references | Supports telecommunications, broadcasting and research |
| Testing services | Evaluates products and equipment against standards | Improves consumer protection and manufacturing quality |
| Technical training | Transfers specialist knowledge to industry | Develops Pakistani technical capacity |
| International comparisons | Compares national capabilities with other institutes | Demonstrates Pakistan’s competence globally |
These were not decorative scientific activities. They formed the invisible architecture of an industrial state.
The Pakistani scientist who worked at Britain’s NPL
Long before becoming Director of NPSL, Khalid Islam had worked at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, United Kingdom, as a research scholar pursuing doctoral work involving an ALMS generator—an advanced electronic atomic timekeeping system capable of maintaining accuracy to extraordinarily fine decimal levels.
He earned a prestigious scholarship associated with HRH the Prince of Wales, an opportunity offered to only a handful of students internationally. His work at NPL demanded more than theoretical research. To complete the technical installation, he routed several hundred metres of electronic cabling through the establishment, turning a complex scientific assignment into an operating system.
Britain offered him professional opportunity, including a £25,000 job offer at the time. He could have remained there, completed his doctorate and followed the comfortable route taken by many capable professionals whose home countries fail to create equivalent opportunities.
He chose Pakistan.
Khalid Islam returned before completing his PhD because he wanted to bring the technology and knowledge home. That decision cost him personally, but it gave Pakistan something considerably more important than another expatriate success story: domestic scientific capability.
In 1993, he installed the atomic timekeeping system through which Pakistan strengthened its ability to realize and maintain Pakistan Standard Time domestically instead of depending entirely upon an external reference. Pakistan Standard Time had existed administratively before this installation, but the achievement gave the country a stronger scientific foundation for generating, maintaining and disseminating its own precise time reference.
That distinction matters. A time zone can be declared on paper; maintaining a national time standard requires scientific infrastructure.
Why atomic timekeeping matters
Everyday clocks appear simple because the scientific machinery behind them is hidden. Modern telecommunications, broadcasting, satellite systems, navigation, scientific laboratories, power networks and digital transactions depend upon precise synchronization.
A small timing discrepancy means little to someone checking a wristwatch, but at the level of electronic systems it can interfere with data transmission, frequency control and measurement reliability. Atomic timekeeping makes it possible to preserve stability far beyond the capability of ordinary mechanical or electronic clocks.
Khalid Islam did not merely bring back a machine. He brought back the ability to operate, maintain and apply highly specialized knowledge inside Pakistan.
That is what genuine technology transfer looks like. It is not a foreign delegation giving a presentation, signing a photograph-friendly memorandum and leaving. It happens when a Pakistani scientist learns an advanced system, returns home, installs it, trains people and embeds the capability inside a national institution.
Keith Berry, NPL and the relationship with Pakistan
During Khalid Islam’s tenure as Director, NPSL actively cultivated relationships with measurement institutions in other countries. Delegations from the United Kingdom were invited to Pakistan, giving their scientists an opportunity to see the laboratories, technical services and institutional ambition being developed in Islamabad.
Among those visitors was Keith Berry, a research scientist associated with the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. Berry visited Pakistan three times between 2004 and 2006 and was deeply impressed by the enthusiasm, technical direction and progress demonstrated under Khalid Islam’s leadership.
The relationship developed into a meaningful connection between NPSL and NPL. In reciprocation, Berry invited Khalid Islam to visit NPL and Bushy House, allowing him to return to an institution where he had previously conducted demanding scientific work.
This was scientific diplomacy built through professional respect. Pakistan was not begging for ceremonial recognition. Its scientist had created an institutional relationship by demonstrating competence.
How the Newton apple tree came to Pakistan
The Newton apple-tree sapling emerged from this Pakistan–United Kingdom scientific relationship. In acknowledgement of Khalid Islam’s work developing NPSL’s primary laboratories and creating a strong linkage with Britain’s National Physical Laboratory, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded NPSL a sapling descended from the original Newton apple tree.
The sapling was planted within the premises of NPSL in Islamabad.
Its symbolism was extraordinary. The original apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor is associated with Sir Isaac Newton’s thinking about gravity—one of history’s most recognizable moments of scientific curiosity. A descendant of that tree reaching Pakistan represented the movement of scientific knowledge across generations, institutions and national borders.
It also represented something more personal. A Pakistani scientist who had once worked inside Britain’s national laboratory had returned home, developed Pakistan’s own institution and built a relationship strong enough for one of science’s most famous living symbols to be presented to NPSL.
That credit belongs to Khalid Islam.
