Today, we celebrate Independence Day, the 63rd this time. It is an extraordinary one, celebrated within RMCO period due to Covid-19. My wish is that our lives can return to normal sometime in the future and our efforts for the nation's development are back in full force.
This day might mean a thousand and one different things to many other people. For me, I will narrow it within my own scope of duty. When I came back home from B.Sc. (Hons.) studies in Australia, I applied for a job in UPM. During the interview, one of the questions posed to me was what I can contribute to the university. My answer was something like establishing a theoretical physics tradition that would be respectable internationally. When I did my PhD, I realised that this is much harder than I thought. The least that I could do, is to plant seeds for such tradition to grow. The first step is to attain understanding of sophisticated reputable work and build a community around such work. Over the years, I have taken enough students (more than I could really cope, I guess) to do just this. Now, that Dr. Chan Kar Tim and Dr. Nurisya have joined us (and hopefully soon, Umair), they could continue what has been started. The next stage would be to make the group noticeable internationally. We have made contacts with several international researchers in the past and I hope that such network can be maintained. Finally to be 'independent', is when our ideas are being sought by others internationally. However in reality, growth in science can only be interdependent in nature but the hope is some day that we will be treated as EQuaLS.
