Nye grew up in Hove, Sussex, the second of three children of Haydn Nye and Jessie Hague, daughter of Joshua Anderson Hague. His father was Catholic and his mother was Anglican, and Nye grew up going to both churches.[6]
Nye attended Hawthornden's School kindergarten opposite his house; Holland House (later Claremont School), also in Hove, for preparatory school; and then boarded at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire for his secondary education. He won a Foundation scholarship to study mathematics and physics at King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA), a Master of Arts (MA), and finally a PhD in 1948.[6]
Career
After completing his PhD, Nye was employed as a demonstrator in Cambridge's Department of Mineralogy and Petrology for three years and then had a year-long post-doctoral research position at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. He subsequently returned to England and, in 1953, joined the University of Bristol.[5][6]
His early work was on the physics of plasticity, spanning ice rheology, ice flow mechanics, laboratory ice flow measurements, glacier surges, meltwater penetration in ice, and response of glaciers and ice sheets to seasonal and climatic changes. Later in his long career, he worked extensively in optics, publishing his last paper on electromagnetic wave polarization only a few days before his death.[7]
Nye worked into his nineties, even after his formal retirement, and "never lost his intellectual curiosity". When he grew too frail to physically go to the university, he would write papers from home. He was known at Bristol for his "his decency and his scientific generosity... His intellectual determination... balanced by his unfailing politeness".[5]
Personal life
In 1953, Nye married Georgiana Wiebenson, whom he had met during his year at Bell Laboratories, in the chapel of King's College Cambridge. They had three children: Hilary Catherine (b. 1957), Stephen Christopher (b. 1960), and Carolyn Lucy (b. 1963). Nye renovated a rundown house in Bristol into their family home. On the side, he was an avid gardener, and left the garden open as part of the National Open Garden Scheme. He also enjoyed snorkeling, painting, poetry, and the Christian choral tradition.[6]
Nye died on 8 January 2019 at age 95 from heart failure.[2]
J.F. Nye, 1999, Natural Focusing and Fine Structure of Light: Caustics and Wave Dislocations. CRC Press. ISBN978-0-7503-0610-2
Scientific publications
1951, The flow of glaciers and ice-sheets as a problem in plasticity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A-Mathematical And Physical Sciences, 207(1091),554-572.
1952, The mechanics of glacier flow. J. Glaciol. 2 (1952), pp. 82–93
1953, The flow law of ice from measurements in glacier tunnels, laboratory experiments and the Jungfraufirn Borehole Experiment. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A-Mathematical And Physical Sciences, 219(1139), 477–489.
^ ab"John F. Nye 1923–2019". International Glaciological Society. 16 January 2019. Archived from the original on 16 January 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2019.