DENVER—William A. Rense, a University of Colorado physics professor for 31 years and a founder of the school’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, died last month in Estes Park. He was 94.
Rense died March 28 after complications from sarcoma cancer, said his son Charles Rense, 49.
Rense participated in the nation’s early space research in the 1950s and 1960s. His work in the late 1950s led to his discovery of the lyman alpha spectral hydrogen signature of the sun, an important step in better understanding the properties and chemical composition of the sun, said his son John Rense, 56.
His family said his biggest accomplishment was teaching.
“He did a fair amount of research but he was a professor who really enjoyed teaching,” Charles Rense said.
Since Rense died, the family has received letters from people who took his classes, and they consistently talk about “how it was a unique and special time,” John Rense said. “It was an experience that lingered with them.”
William Rense was born March 11, 1914, in Massillon, Ohio. His love of astronomy as a child led him to physics, John Rense said.
Rense earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and his master’s and Ph.D in physics from Ohio State.
He began teaching at CU-Boulder in 1949 as a physicist at the university’s Upper Air Laboratory, which he developed into the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
He sometimes taught honors classes at his house, John Rense said. “I remember as a child seeing the discussions. It was very precious,” he said. “It was really kind of a volunteer situation. There was very little personal benefit other than the joy of doing it.”
Rense retired in 1980 but still relished the opportunity to share his knowledge of the stars, tutoring fellow residents of a retirement home in Estes Park.
“They told me that he had taken them outside and shown them the constellations,” he said.
Rense is survived by his wife, Wanda of Estes Park; sons John of Anchorage, Alaska, Charles of Los Alamos, N.M., and William of Stockton, Calif.; brother Andrew Rense of Valley Springs, Calif.; two granddaughters and a great grandson.
A memorial service was held April 2 in Estes Park.
