Alfred Nobel was a Swedish factory owner and inventor who was etched in history as the inventor of dynamite. Nobel enriched himself through the production of explosives and weapons, and was responsible for the Nobel Prize by leaving a large part of his fortune for its creation.
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Youth
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swede who was born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833. He was the son of Immanuel Nobel and Karolina Andriette Nobel , being one of the four children of this couple who survived their poor childhood. In all, his parents had eight children, but half died in infancy.
Alfred Nobel's other brothers were:
- Robert Nobel (1829-1896)
- Ludvig Nobel (1831-1888)
- Emil Oskar Nobel (1843-1864)
Nobel's childhood was marked by poverty, which made his father, Immanuel, move to Russia. Immanuel was an engineer and inventor and decided to work producing machinery and explosives in St. Petersburg. In 1842, he managed to take his entire family to Russia, after an improvement in business.
It was only with the improvement in the family's financial condition that Nobel was able to access his studies. His father paid tutors who introduced Nobel to subjects like chemistry and literature . Studies also allowed him to become fluent in five languages :Swedish, Russian, English, French and German.
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Nobel as a Maker of Explosives
Nobel's education continued when his father sent him to study chemistry in Paris in 1850. Immanuel's goal was for Alfred to become an engineer, but Alfred ended up becoming an industrial focused on the production of explosives. In Paris he worked with Jules Pélouze and met Ascanio About .
Ascanio Sobrero was an Italian scientist who had been responsible for the invention of nitroglycerin by mixing glycerin, sulfuric acid and nitric acid. However, Sobrero himself advised against its use because the substance was highly explosive, and changes in temperature and sudden movements could cause serious accidents.
As his father worked producing explosives, Nobel saw in nitroglycerin an interesting possibility of profit. He devoted himself, for years, to finding a way to make it more stable and safer so that it could be used in the production of more efficient explosives. Before returning to Russia, Nobel still spent time studying in the United States.
Back in Russia in 1852, he went to work in his father's company, whose conditions remained good until 1856, because he supplied armaments and explosives for the Russian army (which participated in the of Crimea). With the end of the war, there was the end of the contract with the Russian army, and this led the company to a complicated financial situation.
In 1859, Immanuel Nobel returned to Sweden and left his company under the management of his son Ludvig. Nobel, in turn, also decided to return to Sweden to continue studying explosives and ways to safely produce nitroglycerin.
This period of study brought him some achievements. He managed to invent detonators that were patented by him and became widely used in the detonation of explosives in the world; he also started producing nitroglycerin in a small factory set up in the city of Stockholm.
Nobel's production of nitroglycerin took a huge hit when an explosion happened during the preparation of this substance. It took place in 1864 and killed five people , one of whom was his younger brother, Emil Oskar Nobel . After that, Nobel was unable to continue producing nitroglycerin inside Stockholm.
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The invention of dynamite
So many years of work and dedication, to find a way to make nitroglycerin safe and efficient for explosives production, paid off for Alfred Nobel. In 1867, he decided to mix nitroglycerin with diatomite , also known as kieselguhr . The result was a folder that is more stable and a great explosive.
Nobel patented his invention and called it dynamite. The inspiration for this came from a Greek word:dynamis , which means “power” and gives an indication of what dynamite is — a powerful explosive . Dynamite quickly established itself in the market as one of the main explosives, being considered safer than most.
The invention of dynamite, in particular, turned Nobel into a great industrialist. He opened tens from factories across Europe and the United States and began to accumulate a fortune. Nobel also invented other explosives, such as gelatinized nitroglycerin and ballistite. These inventions made him one of the largest explosives producers in the world.
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Last years
Not much is known about Alfred Nobel's personal life. He was very private, but we know he didn't marry or have children. It is said that he fell in love with a woman hired to be his housekeeper. She was an Austrian named Bertha, but who quit her job weeks after taking it on to marry Arthur von Suttner.
So she became Bertha von Suttner, she became a close friend of Nobel, and the two corresponded frequently. She was a pacifist and became internationally recognized for her defense of peace, even winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 (the prize came in 1901, as we will see).
Throughout his life, Nobel was honored several times for all his inventions, going so far as to become a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science . He also received a PhD honorary from Uppsala University, Sweden.
In addition to explosives, Nobel invested his money in the production of some synthetic products, in addition to investing in the refinery developed by one of his brothers in Azerbaijan. Nobel was, as we realize, a successful man and accumulated hundreds of patents , in addition to having owned nearly a hundred factories.
Paradoxically, despite having enriched himself with the manufacture of explosives and war equipment, Nobel presented himself as a pacifist. When he died, he owned a fortune that exceeded 2 billion Swedish kronor (corrected value), value that corresponds to more than 1 billion reais in current values. Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1896 , at his residence in Italy.
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How did the Nobel Prize come about?
The Nobel Prize came in fulfillment of the testament that Alfred Nobel wrote a year before he died. In that will, Alfred Nobel left 94% of his fortune so that an award was created to honor and reward people who performed great deeds for the benefit of humanity.
Nobel also indicated the institutions that would distribute the prizes and the categories that would be awarded:Physics , Chemistry , Physiology or Medicine , Literature, and Peace . He, however, did not stipulate who would manage his fortune, and this created a series of legal problems that were only resolved years later.
In 1900, the Nobel Foundation was founded , responsible for managing the funds left as an inheritance by Alfred Nobel. The first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901 , and the award is currently one of the highest honors in the world.
It is believed that Nobel proposed the creation of the prize to leave a better image of himself . The starting point for this would have been the year 1888, when his brother Ludvig died. This event was followed by a headline in a French newspaper that mixed up the information and announced Alfred's death with the words "The merchant of death is dead".
Nobel, who had not died, then realized his negative image as a producer of explosives and weapons. He began to think of ways to leave a legacy more positive, and the creation of the Nobel Prize would have been the way out.
Image credits
[1] Golden Brown and Shutterstock