Hard to believe. A man who was larger than life in our circle of friends and coworkers is gone. He was regarded as a wizard in our particular cohort of engineers, enabling computers to perform powerful tasks beyond everyone’s expectations. He was among the pioneers of computer graphics, a key contributor to a technology that garnered an Academy Award for motion picture special effects. If, in our work, we encountered an insoluble problem, it was assigned to Bill. Which he then solved.
He was a man of many interests, with an encyclopedic knowledge of history, especially of technical achievements. I have been astounded at the stories he could relate regarding the construction of bridges and buildings, the details of famous historical events, the workings of clocks and calendars—he once demonstrated that the 13th of the month is most likely to fall on Friday, and a myriad of other technical details about the everyday world around us. You could bring up just about any topic and Bill would have some fascinating story to tell about it.
Bill was a lifelong astronomy enthusiast. He was an active member of the Minnesota Astronomical Society, serving for many years on their board as treasurer, participating in observatory construction, and writing many illuminating articles for their newsletter. He had a telescope to view night sky objects, but his passion was for observing total solar eclipses.
As a student at Carnegie Mellon University, he once embarked on an impromptu road trip, cutting classes with his physics classmates to see an eclipse in Virginia, and was then hooked for the rest of his life. Every year or two, there would be a total eclipse somewhere in the world, and Bill would arrange to witness it. He often signed up for tours specializing in solar eclipses. He became a member of a select group that traveled the corners of the world for these events.
A solar eclipse presents a brief time in totality, usually only a few minutes. Bill aspired to witness twenty such events. He made it to 19, logging nearly an hour of totality, a few minutes at a time. After each of his expeditions, he would organize his photos and maps and other visual materials and make a presentation to the members of the MAS. These talks could always be counted on to be rich in history and detail, both about the celestial mechanics of the eclipse itself, and of the part of the planet he had traveled to. They were utterly fascinating and consequently, very popular.
I had the pleasure to be included in his tour group in 2013 to see an eclipse in Kenya. Unfortunately, on eclipse day, after we had set up our telescopes and cameras, we were suddenly overtaken by a sandstorm, rising in an ominous yellow cloud to our backs, overwhelming the clear sky just as the eclipse was beginning. The winds were fearsome and our small group of observers on that desert ridge had to scurry to cover the delicate optics and protect them from the sandblast.
Fortunately, every eclipse travel tour includes other activities to make up for the chance the eclipse is obscured. This tour included safaris to observe African wildlife. And these side trips more than made up for our eclipse miss. I took many photos, and some happened to include Bill. Here are some that will remind me of this wonderful shared experience with Bill Glass, a man I admired and whom I am proud to have been a colleague and friend.
We will miss Bill, a remarkable man, making his mark and contributing his immense talent during many years of technical advances. I will also miss his other contributions, enlightening and spirited, to our group of friends, coworkers and colleagues over those many years.
Thor Olson
October 26, 2024
