We tend to quantize our lives into multiples of the decades of years through which each of US has inhabited this planet. 1 have arrived at four of these "punctuation marks" in the flow of life (and some in yours), here in 1995. 1 hope my IRPS friends and fellow members wil1 indulge me by letting me use this column to recount a few reflections and reminiscences evoked by this conjunction of anniversaries. Of course, there is an additional important anniversary in 199.5 which predates my life, also to be mentioned.
10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRF'S
The IRPS was founded in 1985 in Ferrara, Italy at the 3rd International Symposium on Radiation Physics (ISRP-3) organized by Ernesto Casnari and his colleagues Claudio Baraldi, Agostino Tartari and others. The concept of forming such a Society had grown out of conversations with Ann Ghose, Suprakash Roy, D. V. Gopinath and others at ISRP-f in Calcutta in 1974. More detailed plans were developed at ISRP-2 in Penang in 1982, and there a pro tem Committee to establish the Society was formed, consisting of: A. M. Ghose (India), Chair; J. H. Hubbell (U.S.A.), Secretary; Daphne Jackson (U.K.); D. B. Isabelle (France); A. Ljubicic vugoslavia (Croatia)]; M. A. Gomaa (Egypt); P. K. Iyengar (India); and 1. B. Whittingham (Australia). Then in 1985 at ZSRP-3 in Ferrara, at a nice Italian restaurant, glasses were raised in a toast as this core group declared the IRPS to exist, with Officers informally agreed upon, with their acceptances. to serve until an election would be held prior to the next Symposium three years hence.