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Professor Nye's Passing

medi

medi

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My condolences to family and friends of Professor Nye.

Just found out about his passing when checking my email account associated with MOFA, here in Japan.

Message of condolence by Foreign Minister IWAYA on the passing of Professor Joseph S. Nye
e-mail
May 8, 2025

On May 8, Foreign Minister IWAYA Takeshi issued the following message of condolence on the passing of Joseph S. Nye, Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government in the United States.

I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Joseph S. Nye of Harvard University. Professor Nye, who possessed profound knowledge and insight into international politics, was one of the foremost scholars with a deep understanding of the Japan-U.S. Alliance. Through his policy recommendations and efforts to promote bipartisan understanding of Japan within the United States, he made lasting contributions to the development of the Japan-U.S. relationship. I would like to once again express my profound respect for his contributions and extend my sincere condolences on his passing.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, IWAYA Takeshi
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Oh no! RIP. I used to watch his show sometimes even though I was already an adult, but found it really entertaining and a great way to make science more fun and accessible.
 
ElChupacabra said:
Oh no! RIP. I used to watch his show sometimes even though I was already an adult, but found it really entertaining and a great way to make science more fun and accessible.
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Apparently we both got the wrong Nye.
 
My son grew up enjoying Bill Nye the Science Guy.
And I enjoyed watching the shows with him.

Sorry, fell for the hoax.
Glad Bill Nye the science guy is still with us.
 
ElChupacabra said:
Oh no! RIP. I used to watch his show sometimes even though I was already an adult, but found it really entertaining and a great way to make science more fun and accessible.
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***Edit** Whoopsie!

RIP to professor Joseph Nye.
 
KingLeo said:
My son grew up enjoying Bill Nye the Science Guy.
And I enjoyed watching the shows with him.

Sorry, fell for the hoax.
Glad Bill Nye the science guy is still with us.
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Fortunately you both can still send him a letter and say thanks!
:)
 
reflechissez said:
What's the purpose of this thread?
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That is a valid question and I was asking myself that when I saw that I had not thought that there might be more than one Nye fella that is what that word "famous" could relate to.

Firstly, the email message from MOFA caught me with my guard down as I had just gone through about an hour of learning how stupid my brain could be. (I blame my brain for stupidity, and smarts is to my credit; there being two of 'us'.)

Anyway, the email from MOFA caught me sort of off-guard, and then I realized rather quickly that he could very well be known by some on this site and I know, for sure, one Nye family member and a colleague of his poke their noses into this Community from time-to-time; so I just about immediately posted that message of condolence from me.

But now I also should apologize for not properly identifying Professor Nye, except Mr. Iwaya's email message is a bit clear about who Professor Nye is*/was. I really didn't know about the "Science Guy" until I saw those posts up there. [*It really can be present tense, if you influence others in a good way.]
 
Kind of an off topic post, but related to the idea behind this thread.

It was the mid-90's, I was still active duty Navy and was working on my Masters in a Technology field and there was a class I was really struggling with. So I was poking around the University servers of various universities around the country as research for a paper. I came across a paper by a Professor in the field that he'd written for his own students a few years before.

Now we're talking the era of FTP/Listservs as the method of file sharing. This was before the explosion of the internet and the World Wide Web.

I sat there and read this paper and he explained everything perfectly that I'd struggled with. I read it once for relevance, then read it again for understanding. Things just started to click. I really began to Grok it (if there are any Heinlein fans around). I carried on and suprisingly still got an "A" in the class. So I sat down and wrote a letter - on paper - you know we used to do that right? Introduced myself, told him my situation, how I found his paper, and how it helped so much in really learning the material, and thanked him very much and how he must have been a great teacher. Put it in an envelope and mailed it off.
.
.
.
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About 2 months later I received a nice letter from his wife. My letter had arrived while her husband (the professor) was in the hospital, he was terminal and was getting what we would call these days as hospice care. She'd read my letter to her husband and to receive a letter from a complete stranger about how much of a positive impact his work had, and would continue to have, was something that brought joy and comfort to her husband and herself. That receiving the letter just days before his death was a god send.

So ya, I get the purpose of the thread and hope that Professor Nye's friends or family see it.

WW
 
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