Alfred Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel (/'alframbid 'b transformation:h engaged: no noŭb (?·i)/ Stockholm, Sweden October 21, 1833 - San Remo, Italy December 10, 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, writer and inventor, famous mainly for the invention of dynamite and for creating the prizes that bear its name. Nobel was the owner of the company Bofors, a company that he directed from the production of iron and steel, to the large-scale manufacture of cannons and other armaments. He registered 355 patents during his lifetime and currently his name survives in several companies, such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel.

Nobel showed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at age 24. He embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning Bofors, an iron and steel producer that he turned into a major manufacturer of cannons and other weapons.

After reading an erroneous obituary that condemned him as a war profiteer, Nobel was inspired to bequeath his fortune to the Nobel Prize institution, which would annually recognize those who "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" 34;. The synthetic element nobelium is named after him, and his name and legacy also survive in companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which descended from mergers with companies he founded.

Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, according to his will, would be in charge of choosing the Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry.

Biography

Early years and education

Alfred Nobel was the third child of Immanuel Nobel, an inventor and engineer, and Karolina Andriette Nobel (née Ahlsell) and had seven siblings. The family became impoverished, and only Alfred and his three brothers survived past infancy. Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702), and in turn, the boy became interested in for engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basics from his father at a very young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, a student at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

When he was nine years old, the family moved to Russia, where he and his siblings received a thorough education in the natural sciences and humanities.

After several business failures, Nobel's father moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he found success as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented the veneer lathe, which made modern plywood production possible, and began working in underwater mines. In 1842, the family joined him in the city. Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors, and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly chemistry and languages, becoming fluent in English, French, German, and Russian. For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he attended as a child, in Stockholm.

He returned to Sweden in 1863, and there he completed the research he had begun in the field of explosives: in 1863 he managed to control the explosions of nitroglycerin by means of a detonator, invented by the Italian Ascanio Sobrero; in 1865 he perfected the system with a mercury detonator; and in 1867 he obtained dynamite, a plastic explosive resulting from absorbing nitroglycerin in a porous solid material, thereby reducing accidents. The accidental explosions of nitroglycerin, in one of which his own brother Emil had died, had aroused strong criticism against Nobel and his factories.

Nobel photographed by Gösta Florman.

In 1895 he founded Elektrokevislas Aktiebolaget, better known as Eka, in Bengtsfors, Sweden. The company was eventually absorbed by the AkzoNobel group, which still bears part of its name today.

He also developed his literary skills to write poetry in English. His work Nemesis , a prose tragedy about the Beatrice Cenci episode, inspired in part by Shelley's The Cenci , was printed while he was dying. The entire print run of the work, except for three copies, was destroyed as it was considered scandalous and blasphemous. Currently, in addition to a Swedish edition, there is another in French.

He was a lonely man, who never married or had children, he only had two unsatisfactory romances, one of which was with the pacifist Bertha von Suttner. He was fluent in five languages (Swedish, French, Russian, English and German).

In his will signed on November 27, 1895 at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel establishes with his fortune a fund with which the best exponents of Literature, Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and of peace. Subsequently, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel was created, which is not properly a Nobel, but in memory of Alfred Nobel.

He died from a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896 at the age of 63.

It is estimated that his fortune at the time of his death was 33,000,000 crowns, of which he bequeathed only a small amount to his family. The rest went to the Nobel Prize winners.

Religion

Nobel was a Lutheran and regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad during his years in Paris, led by Pastor Nathan Söderblom who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. He became an agnostic in youth and he was an atheist later in life, though he still donated generously to the Church.

Health and Relationships

Nobel traveled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America while maintaining a home in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a reclusive character, given to periods of depression. He remained single, although his biographers point out that he had at least three love affairs, the first in Russia with a girl named Alexandra who rejected his proposal. In 1876, the Austrobohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became his secretary, but she left him after a brief stay to marry her previous lover, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Her contact with Nobel was brief, but she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and probably influenced her decision to include a peace prize in her will. She was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize "for his sincere activities for peace'. Nobel's longest-lasting relationship was with Sofija Hess of Celje whom he met in 1876. The relationship lasted 18 years.

Residences

In the years from 1865 to 1873, Alfred Nobel lived in Krümmel, Hamburg, later moving to a house on Avenue Malakoff in Paris that same year.

Björkborn Manor, in Karlskoga, was the last residence of Alfred Nobel in Sweden.

In 1894, when he acquired Bofors-Gullspång, Björkborn Manor was included, he stayed at his manor house in Sweden during the summers. The manor house became his last residence in Sweden and after his death it has functioned as a museum.

Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1896, in Sanremo, Italy, at his last residence, Villa Nobel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

Inventions

Nobel discovered that when nitroglycerin was incorporated into an inert absorbent substance such as kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it was safer and more comfortable to handle, and this mixture was patented in 1867 as "dynamite". Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, in a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help re-establish his name and improve the image of his business from previous controversies associated with dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly potent substance 'Nobel Security Powder', but he settled on Dynamite instead, in reference to the Greek word for "power" (δύναμις.^{[citation required]}

Subsequently, Nobel combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but opted for a more effective recipe that combined another nitrate explosive, resulting in a transparent, gel-like substance that was a more powerful explosive than nitrate. dynamite. Gelignite, or blasting gelatin, as it was called, was patented in 1876; and a multitude of similar combinations followed, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable, and more conveniently shaped to fit into drilled holes, such as those used in drilling and mining, than previously used compounds. It was adopted as standard mining technology in the "Engineering Age," bringing Nobel great financial success, albeit at the cost of his health. One offshoot of this research led to Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor to many modern smokeless-powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.^{[citation needed ]}

Tributes

• In his honor he has called the Nobel asteroid (6032), and bears his name the Nobel lunar crater as well as a chemical element, the Nobel Prize, and the Nobel Prizes.