Manfred Raether, 92, of Urbana, died March 26 at his home. In 1959, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois as an assistant professor of physics to start a program in experimental plasma physics. His research centered around beam plasma instabilities, ion-acoustic instabilities, nonlinear effects and turbulence. He was promoted to associate professor in 1961 and to professor in 1967. From 1980 until his retirement in 1992, he served as the associate head of the department of physics. A visitation is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at Morgan Memorial Home, 1304 Regency Drive West, Savoy, Illinois. Memorials: to your favorite charity.
Ralph Stoner Wolfe, 97, of Urbana, died March 26 at Meadowbrook Health Center, Urbana. He began his scientific career in the department of microbiology at the university, retiring as a professor emeritus in 1991. He taught a course in which students isolated and cultivated microbes from various natural environments. His research interests concerned a special group of microbes that produce methane in environments without oxygen. In experiments with Carl R. Woese, a professor of microbiology at Illinois, these methane-forming microbes were discovered by Woese to be the first members of a third division of life, the archaea. Memorials: Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, 401 N. Third St., #290, Minneapolis, MN 55401.
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