On the tenth anniversary of ISRQI, the chair and co-chair, knowing that I was the chief architect in its design and establishment, asked me to write something about how our society came into being. ISRQI was inaugurated on June 1, 2010 in the first RQI-North conference held in Hualien, Taiwan, organized by S.-Y. Lin. I thought this might be a good thing, using this occasion to refresh our Society’s mission and goals, so younger researchers in this field can carry on to meet them as they scale new heights.

There are always two aspects in any international academic society. One is the discipline, the other is the people. First, the science: RQI has three major components, relativity, quantum and information, all of fundamental importance. We know the history of how impactful any two of these fundamental components come together: Special relativity and quantum mechanics lead to quantum field theory, whose validity is unquestionable and applicability universal. General relativity and quantum field theory lead to quantum field theory in curved spacetimes in the 70s. Information has long been a central issue in black hole quantum physics since the seminal papers of Bekenstein and Hawking in the early 70s. Semiclassical gravity in the 80s is the bedrock for further exploration of gravity, quantum fields and quantum information issues. Quantum information science took great leaps in the 90s both in theory and in experiments. For RQI, by the beginning of 2000 already there were papers exploring the special relativistic aspects of quantum information, notably the review by Peres and Terno. Quantum gravity has been for the past seven decades the holy grail of theoretical physics, drawing in talents from gravitation and mathematical relativity to particles-fields and string theory. It was enriched by new insights in AdS/CFT correspondence, gravity/gauge duality, strings, loops, networks, causets, and many other veins. Advances were brought about by the infusion of quantum information ideas, such as holography in the 90s and the Ryu-Takayanagi entanglement entropy formula in 2006. By mid-2000 it is clear that the confluence of these three fundamental disciplines is a destiny of theoretical physics. Channeling its force to further our understanding of Nature was the scientific motive for establishing an international society of RQI.

The second factor: the people. Seeing the future of where scientific research will go is extremely important, but not enough. We need to bring outstanding people in these three frontier fields together. A society with shared values and common goals, made up of people from different backgrounds and working experiences, can help to amplify each individual’s effort and further the impact of their joint endeavors. Thus, how to round up the right people to form a core group for the germination of an international society became the main task. Two groups are needed, one, the Advisory Board, providing long term scientific guidance, the other, the Council, responsible for legislative and executive functions. With fair geographical, disciplinary and gender representation, the council members elect the chair, co-chair, the secretary and another officer (treasury, membership etc.). My own background being in general relativity and quantum field theory, with some working experience in aspects of quantum information, makes it easy to identify the trusted people to serve in these respective capacities. E.g., Bill Unruh, my old classmate, in gravity and quantum fields, John Preskill and Seth Lloyd in quantum information, Gerard Milburn in quantum optics and Francesco Petruccione in open quantum systems, these are no brainers for the Advisory Board. For the executive branch, knowing Rob Mann’s organizational talent and Tim Ralph’s amazing skill in conducting the RQI workshop series at Queensland University, I know they would lead the society to a brilliant start. These were my thoughts around 2008, I had a design, a wish list. The real challenge was to sell this idea of an international society of RQI to people working on any two of these three disciplines, and get the renowned scientists and able leaders on board.

First RQI-N conference. Two necessary steps in the preparation for ISRQI were 1) to organize the first RQI conference in the northern hemisphere, 2) to coordinate with Tim Ralph, convince him to bring his base into this new international family. For 1) I discussed with S Y Lin (who visited me in 2008 when I spent March-June at the Perimeter Institute) about holding it in Taiwan in 2000. For 2), to consult our Australian colleagues working on quantum information at Queensland and Macquarie, I visited Sydney in late 2008 for the Peres School, then Brisbane in Dec. 2009 for Tim’s workshop. To organize an international meeting on RQI we need to invite as many representative working groups worldwide as possible, in addition to the already well-known researchers, say, in Australia, Canada, UK. So we tried to read up on all the relevant papers and identify whom to invite. That’s how we got to know, e.g., Juan Leon, and his outstanding graduate student Eduardo. The next question was: Where could we get enough funding to invite the key speakers? That’s when I suggested that we overlap one day with the IARD meeting organized by Prof. D. S. Lee at DongHua University, use the same conference site, so we can share the resources. The first RQI-N meeting went smoothly for two days. At the end we held a special session inviting all participants to discuss the plan for the establishment of ISRQI. [photos]. The year following that was occupied by busy work of invitations to the Advisory Board, the induction of research leaders into the Council, the election of the executive committee, the drafting of a constitution (still pending), and the planning of the following RQI-N meetings. The enthusiastic response from researchers worldwide was a clear indication that this interdisciplinary field is in accelerated expansion and it is timely to build an international platform for the advancement of this youthful science and the young scientists.

The two primary missions of ISRQI as I see them are, 1) With the rich prospect of this nascent field of great potential, formation of an international society can galvanize the many talents of researchers from a wide range of disciplines to accentuate the development of RQI; 2) Forming a society can provide a platform and a collective voice for young researchers working in this interdisciplinary field of fundamental value for their scientific and career advancements.

I am very happy to see our Society growing healthily in the last decade, with an expanding base, an increasing number of researchers, postdocs and graduate students actively involved in this field and groups to host the conferences. This is due in large part to the excellent work of the council members and the co-chairs of the successive terms in the last ten years. My heartfelt congratulations!

Prof. Bei-Lok Hu (University of Maryland)

Bei Lok Hu received his B.A. in 1967 from the University of California - Berkeley and his Ph.D. in 1972 from Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His research interest spans gravitation theory, quantum fields and nonequilibrium physics.

• Chair
• Jorma Louko (University of Nottingham)
• Co-Chair
• Eduardo Martin-Martinez (University of Waterloo)
• Council (Americas)
• Eduardo Martin-Martinez (University of Waterloo)
• Flaminia Giacomini (ETH Zürich)
• Achim Kempf (University of Waterloo)
• Miles Blencowe (Dartmouth College)
• Council (Asia-Pacific)
• Kazuhiro Yamamoto (Kyushu University)
• Magdalena Zych (Stockholm University)
• Ling Yan Hung (Fudan University)
• Fabio Costa (University of Queensland)
• Council (Europe, Middle-East and Africa)
• Caslav Brukner (University of Vienna)
• Ralf Schuetzhold (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf, TU Dresden)
• Mercedes Martin-Benito (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
• Charis Anastopoulos (University of Patras)
• Advisory Board
• Gerard Milburn (University of Queensland)
• Timothy Ralph (University of Queensland)
• Robert Mann (University of Waterloo)
• Tadashi Takayanagi (Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics)
• Bei-Lok Hu (The University of Maryland)
• William Unruh (The University of British Columbia)

• Career Development Officer
• Mercedes Martin-Benito (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
• Membership Officer
• Jorma Louko (University of Nottingham)
• Outreach Officer
• T. Rick Perche (University of Waterloo, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
• Student/Postdoc Representative
• Cisco Gooding (University of Nottingham)
• Website Officer
• Pietro Smaniotto (University of Nottingham)
• Vitor Barroso (University of Nottingham)

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