Subject: Date: From: To:

Re: Dick's 80th birthday     Mon, 3 Feb 2003 06:16:27 +0000     Peter Knight     .sillitto

Dick: best wishes on your 80th birthday from me and Chris.

I guess my first contact was in the 1970's when I made the first of many trips up to Edinburgh, in those days still trying to understand photons, but then in connection with an odd problem of laser-coloured electrons. Then there was the famous Max Born Optics Conference in Edinburgh, with an infamous programme committee meeting held by John Colles in a laundromat, which I believe you may have escaped. And so on.

Both Chris and I wanted to mention the tremendous service you have given to optics in the UK, and particularly to the Journal of Modern Optics (and in its earlier guise as Optica Acta). When you spent so long on the Editorial Board, we expected a well-earned retirement.

Not so: your refereeing service continues unabated: I got a report from you only this past week. Now when I say "from you" I note it could well have been from you and Winifred as an entangled pair, to use the language of quantum optics. Chris now sends out material addressed to the both of you! We hope you have a very happy birthday, and will lay off the referee requests for a day or two. Well, at least for today.

Peter Knight

Prof. P.L.Knight FRS, Head of Department of Physics, The Blackett Lab
Imperial College London SW7 2BW, UK
WWW: http://www.ph.ic.ac.uk/