Background: The Brown-Twiss experiment resulted in a flurry of discussion over the theoretical explanation of the results. A classical theory had been given, however David Ross noted that some authors claimed that there was not a quantum explanation. Ross, a graduate student in physics at Harvard and a summer employee at the Air Force Optical Properties Laboratory at Bedford, MA, decided to work out the quantum explanation. He was successful and completed his calculations in the summer of 1962. Ross, 24 at the time, was unaware that he could have submitted the paper for publication in a physics journal. The following summer, 1963, his supervisor at the laboratory encouraged him to publish his paper as an Air Force report, which he did. An abstract of the report appeared in 1964 Battelle Technical Review, Volume 13, page 169 and in 1964 Government Reports Announcements, Volume 39, Issues 1-6 ,p. 41. Earlier in February 1963, Roy Glauber published his Physical Review Letter on the topic and followed it with two more papers in September and June of the same year. By the time Ross' director at the lab suggested he issue his work as a report, Ross concluded there was no reason to publish in light of the Glauber paper. He did send a copy of the report to Professor Wolf at Rochester and received the letter shown below. The Air Force report is given here to provide some overdue recognition for this important work.—Mel Oakes
