What
follows is
an article reproduced from Abstracts of AISAMP5 with the kind
permission of the author and a note by Professor Matsuzawa augmenting
the later development including AISAMP5.
Brief
History of the Asian International Seminars on Atomic and Molecular
Physics
Takayanagi, Kazuo
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Professor Emeritus
University of Tokyo, Professor Emeritus.
The
first meeting of this
series of Asian lnternationa1 Seminars on Atomic and Molecular Physics
(AISAMP) was held in Tokyo in 1992. This meeting had another name,
i.e., the Fourth China-Japan Joint Seminar on Atomic and Molecular
Physics. This clearly indicates that the Asian Seminars are the
continuation of the China-Japan Seminars.
In
1979, the 11th ICPEAC
(International Conference on Physics of Electronic and Atomic
Collisions) was held in Kyoto. It was the first big meeting held in
Asia in the field of atomic and molecular physics. For the first time
in the history of ICPEAC, scientists from the mainland China attended
the meeting. Thus, communication started between scientists in China
and those in Japan.
The first China-Japan Seminar was
organized by Professor Gou Qing-quan after exchanging some discussions
by letters with Takayanagi in Japan. It was held in Chengdu in August
1985. Seven scientists from Japan attended the seminar
The
Second China- Japan
Seminar was held in Fuji-Yoshida at the northern foot of Mt. Fuji in
October l 988. In addition to seven participants from the mainland
China, there were two other Chinese, one from Korea and one from
Germany, who were temporarily staying in Japan in some exchange
programs. Number of Japanese participants was nearly 30.
The Third China-Japan Seminar
was held in October 1990 in Taian near Mt. Taishan. Fifteen Japanese
and twenty-eight Chinese scientists attended the meeting.
The
Fourth China-Japan Seminar
was held in Tokyo in October 12-15,1992. The local organizing committee
had intention to extend the China-Japan Seminar to an Asian
Internationa1 Seminar. For some reasons, the title of the “Fourth
China-Japan Seminar” was not removed, but the seminar had the second
title, i.e., “The First Asian International Seminar on Atomic and
Molecular Physics”(AISAMP). There were nine participants from the
mainland China, one from Taiwan, two from Korea, and one from
Singapore. In addition to these, there were also one from U.S.A., one
from U. K., and one from Germany, who were staying in Japan for some
other programs. The book of abstracts was printed in advance and
distributed at the beginning of the seminar. During the meeting, an
international committee was formed. They discussed and decided the name
of the future seminars (Asian lnternationa1 Seminar on Atomic and
Molecular Physics), purpose of the seminars, style of operation, and
the site and the year of the next meeting (in Beijing in 1994), etc.
The
Second AISAMP was held in
Beijing, in October 24-28, 1994. More than 60 scientists attended the
meeting. This number includes nine from Japan, nine from Korea, three
from Taiwan and five from western countries. During the meeting, the
International Advisory Committee was established. In the committee
meeting, the Charter of this series of Seminars was written down and
also it was decided that the next seminar would be held in Korea in
1996.
The Third AISAMP was held in
Pohang, Korea in October 7-10,1996. About one hundred scientists
participated in the meeting. Excluding students from the local
university, there were forty-seven Korean scientists, thirteen from the
mainland China, two from India, fifteen from Japan, eight from Taiwan,
seven from U.S.A. and one from Germany. There were about forty invited
talks which were given orally and about eighty reports presented at two
poster sessions. The proceedings of the Pohang meeting was published
later (1998) in vol.32, No.3 of the Journal of the Korean Physical
Society.
At the Beijing meeting in
1994, it was decided by the International Advisory Committee that the
Fourth Seminar would be held in 2000 and the following meetings should
be held in every other years. A meeting in 1998 was avoided since there
was a big international conference ICPEAC in 1999 in Sendai, Japan.
The Committee met twice during
the Pohang meeting and confirmed the schedule of the future meetings
and Taipei was decided to be the site of the Fourth Seminar.
The Fourth AISAMP was held in
Taipei, Taiwan in October 13-18, 2000. Total number of participants was
about 150. This includes 15 from the mainland China, two from Hong
Kong, one from India, 23 from Japan, 10 from Korea, and one from
Thailand. There were also three from Australia, 18 from U.S.A. and 11
from other (mainly European) countries. Most of the papers reported at
the Seminar were later published in a special issue of the Journal of
Chinese Chemical Society.
Nature of the Seminars has
been changed greatly since we started the China-Japan Seminar. At the
beginning, we had in our mind something like US-Japan Seminar, That is,
the number of participants was expected to be rather small (somewhere
around 30). The Seminar was considered a meeting to exchange informally
ideas and new-findings, to provide a chance to discuss on
already-published works, or to give review talks useful to many
participants. It was not considered a formal meeting where original
papers on completed works are presented. The name “Seminars” came from
this idea. This is one of the reasons why the Seminar organizers in
Japan do not plan to produce proceedings of the Seminars. However,
local situation may be different from country to country where the
Seminar is organized. Thus, the AISAMP Charter has flexibility and does
not say anything definitely on, for instance, the proceedings of the
Seminar. Now that the Seminar attracts one hundred or more participants
each time, and the nature of AISAMP has been changing gradually, it may
be better to change its name from “Seminar” to “Symposium” or
“Conference”, if most of the participants so desire.
NOTE ADDED by Professor Michio
Matsuzawa
The article shown above is the
abstract of the talk on the history of AISAMP series given at the
AISAMP5 (Nara, Japan, Oct.2002, Abstracts of AISAMP5 pp105-106) by K.
Takayanagi who was one of the cofounders of the China-Japan Seminars on
Atomic and Molecular Physics, i.e, the precursor of the AISAMP series.
This article only covers the evolution of this series of the Seminars
till the AISAMP4 (Taipei, 2000). Hence recent evolution after the
AISAMP4 is briefly described in the following.
The fifth AISAMP was held at
Nara, Japan in October 2-5, 2002. Total number of the participants was
about 120. About 40 invited talks were orally given at the AISAMP5; 4
from Australia, 5 from China, 4 from India, 15 from Japan, 5 from
Korea, 5 from Taiwan, 1 from Vietnam and etc. About 50 papers were also
given at poster sessions. The current Charter of the Seminar was
established by the International Advisory Committee during the AISAMP5
meeting at Nara. The sixth AISAMP was held in Beijing, China in
September 20-23, 2004. Total number of participants was about 70
excluding local graduate students. More than 100 participants attended
this meeting including local graduate students. 47 papers including
invited talks were orally presented; 3 (3) from Australia, 20(9) from
China, 5(5) from India, 7(5) from Japan, 6(4) from Korea, 3(2) from
Taiwan etc. The numbers in parentheses denote the numbers of invited
talks. About 30 papers were also given at poster sessions.
Judging from these data, the
AISAMP series is now evolving as a wide forum which enables Asian
scientists in the field of atomic, molecular and optical sciences to
exchange new scientific ideas freely and to get fruitful results. At
the AISAMP6 (Beijing), the International Advisory Committee decided
that the seventh AISAMP (2006) should go to Chennai, India. Table shown
below gives an overview of the evolution of the AISAMP series so far,
namely, up to the AISAMP6.