John Frederick Nye (26 February 1923[1] – 8 January 2019[2]) was a British physicist and glaciologist.

[6] 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.

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.

[10] The Cryosphere Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union hosts a Nye Lecture each year at its fall meeting.

He was known at Bristol for his "his decency and his scientific generosity... His intellectual determination... balanced by his unfailing politeness".

[5] In 1953, Nye married Georgiana Wiebenson, whom he had met during his year at Bell Laboratories, in the chapel of King's College Cambridge.