Olaf Devik

Olaf Martin Devik (20 December 1886 – 14 April 1987) was a Norwegian physicist and civil servant. He worked in academia until 1938, when he became an official in the Norwegian Ministry of Church and Education. During the German occupation of Norway, he fled the country and worked with its government in exile. After the war, he returned to the education ministry until his retirement.

Family and early life Devik was born in Gjerdrum Municipality to headmaster Ole Gabriel Johnsen Devik and his wife Marthe Klausdatter Lønnebotn. His parents hailed from Gloppen Municipality and Hyllestad Municipality. He took the examen artium at Kristiania Cathedral School in 1904, and graduated from the Royal Frederick University with the cand.real. degree in 1911. Starting in 1908 he worked as an assistant to Vilhelm Bjerknes in geophysics and meteorology. He was subsequently an assistant to Kristian Birkeland from 1911, studied at the University of Heidelberg from 1913 to 1914, and was hired at the Royal Frederick University in 1914. From 1915 to 1918, he worked and lived at Haldde in Alta Municipality, together with Ole Andreas Krogness, who ran an aurora borealis observatory. The two successfully suggested the establishment of a geophysical institute in Tromsø; both moved there to work in 1918. Their work culminated in the establishment of , the weather forecast for Northern Norway, in 1922. Bruun and Devik released (1939, later reissued) and (1964, later reissued). In 1931 Devik published the thesis , which earned him the dr.philos. degree in 1932. In the same year he started working for the Chr. Michelsen Institute. He was appointed to the First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, as a Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog and as a Commander of the Order of the Polar Star. He was married to Dagny Othilie Hansen in July 1915, and died in April 1987 in Oslo.