John Nye

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John Nye (born February 26, 1923 in Hove , England - † January 8, 2019 ) was a British physicist and professor at the University of Bristol . He made significant contributions to the theoretical description of glacier dynamics , but also published in other research areas, e.g. B. via crystals and microwaves .

biography

Nye studied from 1941 to 1948 at King's College in Cambridge, England, and graduated with a Ph.D. He then worked as a university demonstrator at the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology there . After a short stay in the United States at Bell Telephone Laboratories (1951-1953), he took a position as a lecturer at the University of Bristol in 1953 . Here he worked until his retirement in 1988, until 1965 as a lecturer , then as a reader and from 1969 as a professor. He had been married since 1953, had three children and died at the age of 95 on January 8, 2019.

research

While Nye has participated in some field survey campaigns, most of his work has been theoretical. Coming from solid-state physics , he began working on the flow behavior of glaciers from 1948 onwards. His work contributed significantly to the formulation of a general law of flow for ice. From 1971 to 1975 he was President of the International Commission of Snow and Ice (ICSI) and participated in the compilation of an inventory of all glaciers existing worldwide. In the later years he also dealt with problems of optics and the properties of the polar regions of Mars. Even after his retirement, he remained scientifically active with numerous publications from 1988 to 2013.

Awards

Honors (selection)

Designations

The Antarctic Nye Glacier ( 67 ° 28 ′  S , 67 ° 31 ′  W ) on the Arrowsmith Peninsula in Graham Land was named after John Nye in 1962.

Publications

Books

  • JF Nye, 1957, Physical Properties of Crystals: Their Representation by Tensors and Matrices . Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-851165-6
  • JF Nye, 1999, Natural Focusing and Fine Structure of Light: Caustics and Wave Dislocations . CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-7503-0610-2

Articles (selection)

  • Bragg, L. and Nye, J. (1947): A dynamical model of a crystal structure . Proc. Roy. Soc. A 190, 474-481.
  • Nye, J. (1951): The flow of glaciers as a problem in plasticity . Proc. Roy. Soc. A 207, 554-572.
  • Nye, J. (1957): The distribution of stress and velocity in glaciers and ice-sheets . Proc. Roy. Soc. A 239, 113-133.
  • Nye, J. (1958): Surges in glaciers . Nature, 181, 1450-1451.
  • Nye, J. (1969): A calculation of the sliding of ice over a wavy surface using a Newtonian viscous approximation . Proc. Roy. Soc. A 311, 445-467.
  • Nye, J. (1987): Catastrophe theory in geophysics . In Irreversible Phenomena and Dynamical Systems Analysis in Geosciences, C. Nicolis and G. Nicolis (eds.), D. Reidel Publishing Co., 31-40.
  • Nye, J., Durham, W., Schenk, P., Moore, J. (2000): The instability of a South Polar Cap on Mars composed of carbon dioxide . Icarus, Mars Polar Science Special Issue, 144, 449-455.
  • Hannay, J. and Nye, J. (2013): A differentiated plane wave: its passage through a slab . J. Optics: 15 044025 (8pp)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Nye, CV (PDF; 83 kB) Retrieved August 28, 2013 .
  2. ↑ John F. Nye 1923-2019 International Glaciological Society , accessed January 17, 2019
  3. ^ Jiskoot, H. (2011): "Dynamics of Glacier." In: Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers, p. 415-428.
  4. ^ John Nye, Bristol University website. Retrieved August 28, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Nye, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British glaciologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Hove
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 2019