Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish
chemist and a very skillful entrepreneur and business man, born in Stockholm on October 21,
1833. His father was Immanuel Nobel, an engineer and inventor who built bridges
and buildings in Stockholm.
After a bankruptcy, Immanuel left his family in Stockholm
in 1837 to start up a new business in St.
Petersburg, Russia.
Immanuel's business was to manufacture submarine mines and torpedoes that he
had designed for the Russian government. In 1842 the rest of the family also
moved to Russia.
Immanuel wanted his four sons to get involved in his business, and put
them all through education with private teachers. Alfred was a good student who
early picked up the interest for chemistry. His father sent him on to further
education in the United States
between the years 1850-1852; during this period he also visited Paris and got in contact
with nitroglycerin for the first time, an explosive liquid which was first made
by an Italian scientist named Ascanio Sobrero in 1847. In 1852 Alfred went back
to Russia
to work with his father as the Russian Navy had placed big orders for the
Crimean War (1853-1856). After the war ended and conditions changed, Immanuel
Nobel experienced another bankruptcy and moved back to
Stockholm with
his family. Two of his sons remained in Russia and developed very
successful careers in the oil industry.
Back in Stockholm,
Alfred, his father and Alfred's younger brother Emil started a laboratory in
1859 where they started to do experiments with the explosive liquid
nitroglycerin. Alfred saw that the advantages nitroglycerin had over gun powder
could be used in a commercial and technical way. Over the years they had
several explosions in the laboratory; a big one in 1864 killed the younger
brother Emil and several other people. The city of Stockholm
enforced laws that experiments with explosives could not be made within the
city limits of Stockholm.
This did not stop Alfred; he moved his laboratory to a barge on the Lake of Malaren. Alfred had by now realized that
there were safety problems to be solved; he had to find a safe way to transport
the explosive as well as a method to have control of the detonation of
nitroglycerin. In 1864 the company Nitroglycerin
AB was founded and a mass production of
nitroglycerin started, and the following year , he
opened up the first factory abroad in Hamburg.
Alfred still worked on the safety issue of the explosive, and in 1866 he
successfully mixed nitroglycerin with silica which turned the liquid into a
paste. This paste, which could be formed and shaped as desired, made it
possible for safe transportation. The new material was patented in 1867 under
the name 'dynamite.' He also invented a blasting cap (detonator) also
patented, which could be ignited by lighting a fuse. The market for dynamite
and blasting caps grew very rapidly and over the years Alfred founded factories
in over 20 countries in 90 different locations. In 1893 he bought the
Bofors-Gullspang company in Sweden,
today a world known munitions and firearm factory.
Alfred was a great inventor and had 355 patents overall. Others to
mention, besides dynamite, include synthetic rubber and leather, and artificial
silk. Alfred lived a great deal of his life in Paris but also traveled a lot on business
trips around the world. He was constantly involved in intense work and did not
have much time left for private life. Besides his interest in his business,
Alfred was very interested in social and peace-related issues,
he also had a great interest in literature and poetry and even wrote some of
his own works. He died in San Remo (Italy) on
December 10, 1896. His will directed his fortunes to be used to establish a
foundation that awarded a yearly Nobel Prize in the areas Physics, Chemistry,
Physiology and Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The Nobel Prize ceremony is
held in Stockholm on December 10 each year and
the king of Sweden
is the person in charge of handing over the prize to the awarded in each
category.
