Ralph Tambs Lyche

He was born in Macon, Georgia as a son of Norwegian father Hans Tambs Lyche (1859–1898) and American mother Mary Rebecca Godden (1856–1938).

He finished his secondary education in Fredrikstad in 1908, and was hired as an assistant for Richard Birkeland at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1910.

He also became widely known for his mathematical textbooks, both for the upper secondary school (Matematikk for den høgre skolen) and another for technical colleges and universities (Lærebok i matematisk analyse).

[1] During the martial law in Trondheim in 1942, organized by the occupying Nazi authorities, he was imprisoned at Falstad concentration camp.

He avoided execution unlike some others who were arrested during martial law, but he remained imprisoned from 9 March 1942 to 3 August 1943.

Tambs Lyche (second from the left) with a group of fellow prisoners at Falstad in 1942