Lawrence Wilets, retired professor emeritus of physics at the University of Washington (UW), died Nov. 1, 2010. He was 83.
After Navy service, Wilets earned a bachelor’s degree from Wisconsin in 1948 and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1952. He then did research for Project Matterhorn at Princeton, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He became an associate professor at UW in 1958, and retired as professor emeritus in 1995.
While at UW, Wilets held many visiting and sabbatical positions, including ones at Princeton, Cal Tech, Berkeley, and Stanford. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He wrote two books and over 180 papers on atomic, nuclear, and particle physics. His paper, “Method for Automatic Computation of Stellar Evolution,” introduced the Henyey-Wilets numerical algorithm that became standard for stellar-structure calculations.
Wilets is survived by his wife, Vivian C. Wolfe, professor emerita of nursing at UW, whom he married in 1976, and who cared for him in his later years. He is also survived by three children and six grandchildren from his 29-year marriage to Dulcy E. Margoles.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.