JAMES VAN LUIK of AMHERST, MA, April 26, 1926 – July 27, 2024
July 30th, 2024 | 
Author: 
AMHERST, MA: James van Luik of Amherst died at age 97, from a combination of old age, Parkinson’s disease, and despair at the state of the world.
Jim grew up in New York City and attended Stuyvesant High School, which he remembered fondly and acknowledged as the beginning of his life long interest in science. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University and Oxford (England) University, and had a long academic career teaching at major institutions including Columbia University, the University of Maine, the University of Wisconsin, and Purdue University. He lived and worked in many countries including Sweden, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Tanzania, teaching and overseeing the development of science libraries under the auspices of several organizations including UNESCO and the Maryknoll Society. He was also a Smith-Mundt Fulbright Fellow in Brazil.
In 1992, after a brief stint with Volunteers for Israel, he moved to Amherst because it met his criteria for an area that had “lots of libraries.” It was there that he met Flo Rosenstock, after answering her personal ad seeking a “kind, literate, affectionate recycled mensch” and who became his loving life partner, wife, and ultimately caregiver over the following 32 years.
Jim was a prolific writer, author of nine novels, two small books of poetry, two books of philosophical reflections, and three books on quantum physics. He was also a talented classical pianist, and a highly skilled carpenter, plumber, electrician and fixer of all household things. At their home in Amherst he built a tiny barn designed around an antique cupola that he and Flo found in a shop in NH, and an Asian inspired structure designed to house their lawnmower which he referred to as “the Japanese teahouse.”
Jim was also an avid bicycle rider, who rode early on from Paris to Sweden to meet up with Ann-Marie Palm, the lovely young woman whom he had met at the University of Paris and who would become his first wife. He continued riding his bike right up to the beginning of the pandemic, which probably contributed to his health and longevity, as he was not diagnosed with Parkinson’s until he was in his early 90’s.
Perhaps his greatest satisfaction in his later life, though, was the weekly class on Cosmology and Theoretical Physics that he developed and taught for 15 years, beginning at the Amherst Senior Center and on Zoom after Covid, and continuing until a month before his death. It attracted many retired professionals and others who became colleagues and friends, and Flo dubbed the group “The Gathering of the Brilliant”. He also gave a few short courses at the UMass Renaissance Center on Science during the Renaissance.
Jim is survived by his daughter Colette van Luik and her husband, Elias Modig of Stockholm Sweden, by Flo’s son and daughter-in-law Joshua Rosenstock and Sarah Phillips of Somerville, MA and their children Tzipporah and Solovey, and by many devoted friends and neighbors.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Fisher Home Hospice where during Jim’s last few days he received gentle and compassionate care.
A celebration of Jim’s life will be held in the fall.
Memorial guestbook at www.douglassfuneral.com
Posted in 
Tags: 
