Alfred Bernhard Nobel (/noʊˈbɛl/noh-BEL;[1]Swedish:[ˈǎlfrɛdnʊˈbɛlː]ⓘ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedishchemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. He is known for inventingdynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish theNobel Prizes.[2] He also made several other important contributions to science, holding 355patents during his life.
Born into the prominentNobel family in Stockholm, Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at the age of 24. He embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning the companyBofors, which was an iron and steel producer that he had developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments. Nobel's most famous invention, dynamite, was an explosive made usingnitroglycerin, which was patented in 1867. He further inventedgelignite in 1875 andballistite in 1887.
Upon his death, Nobel donated his fortune to a foundation to fund the Nobel Prizes, which annually recognize those who have "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".[3][4] The synthetic elementnobelium was named after him,[5] and his name and legacy also survive in companies such asDynamit Nobel andAkzoNobel, which descend from mergers with companies he founded. Nobel was elected a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his will, is responsible for choosing theNobel laureates inPhysics and inChemistry.
The birthplace of Alfred Nobel atNorrlandsgatan in Stockholm
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm,Sweden, on 21 October 1833. He was the third son ofImmanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, andAndriette Nobel (née Ahlsell 1805–1889).[6][7] The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished, and only Alfred and his three brothers survived beyond their childhood.[6] Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientistOlaus Rudbeck (1630–1702).[8] Nobel's father was an alumnus of theRoyal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks. He encouraged and taught Nobel from a young age.[7]
Alfred Nobel at a young age in the 1850s
Following various business failures caused by the loss of some barges of building material, Immanuel Nobel was forced into bankruptcy. Nobel's father moved toSaint Petersburg, then part of theRussian Empire, and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives.[9] He invented the veneerlathe, which made possible the production of modernplywood,[10] and started work on thenaval mine.[11] In 1842, the family joined him in the city.[12] Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors, and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English,French,German, andRussian.[6] For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel attended the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm, his only schooling; he never attended university.[13][14]
Nobel gained proficiency in Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to writepoetry in English. HisNemesis is a prose tragedy in four acts about the Italian noblewomanBeatrice Cenci. It was printed while he was dying, but the entire stock was destroyed immediately after his death, except for three copies, being regarded as scandalous andblasphemous. It was published in Sweden in 2003 and has been translated intoSlovenian, French,Italian, andSpanish.[15]
As a young man, Nobel studied with chemistNikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, he went to Paris to further the work. There he metAscanio Sobrero, who had synthesizednitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin because it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to variable heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and usenitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive; it had much more power thangunpowder. In 1851 at age 18, he went to the United States for one year to study,[16] working for a short period under Swedish-American inventorJohn Ericsson, who designed theAmerican Civil Warironclad,USSMonitor. Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for agas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on "ways to prepare gunpowder".[17][18][6] The family factory producedarmaments for theCrimean War (1853–1856), but had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed forbankruptcy.[6] In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son,Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business. Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia, and Nobel devoted himself to the study ofexplosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin. Nobel invented adetonator in 1863, and in 1865 designed theblasting cap.[6]
On 3 September 1864, a shed used for preparation of nitroglycerin exploded at the factory inHeleneborg, Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brotherEmil.[19] He was then deprived of his license to produce explosives.[20] Fazed by the accident, Nobel founded the company NitroglycerinAB inVinterviken so that he could continue to work in a more isolated area.[21] Nobel inventeddynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstablenitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively inmining and the building of transport networks internationally.[6] In 1875, Nobel inventedgelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887, patentedballistite, a predecessor ofcordite.[6]
Nobel was elected a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later selectlaureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received anhonorary doctorate fromUppsala University in 1893. Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert founded the oil companyBranobel and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. It operated mainly inBaku,Azerbaijan, but also inCheleken,Turkmenistan. During his life, Nobel was issued 355patents internationally, and by his death, his business had established more than 90 explosives and armament factories, despite his apparentlypacifist character.[6][22]
Nobel found that whennitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance likekieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as "dynamite".[6] Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry inRedhill,Surrey, England. To help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", which is the text used in his patent, but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to theGreek word for "power" (δύναμις).[23][6][24]
Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar tocollodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite.Gelignite, or blasting gelatin, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances.[6] Gelignite was more stable, powerful, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compounds. It was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the "Age of Engineering", bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention ofballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.[25]
There is a well-known story about the origin of the Nobel Prize, although historians have been unable to verify it, and some dismiss the story as a myth.[26] In 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig supposedly caused several newspapers to publishobituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper condemned him for his invention of military explosives—in many versions of the story, dynamite is quoted, although this was mainly used for civilian applications—and this is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.[6] The obituary stated,Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"),[6] and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[27] Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously donate the majority of his wealth to found theNobel Prize has been credited to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy.[28][6] However, it has been questioned whether or not the obituary in question actually existed.[28]
On 27 November 1895, at theSwedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish theNobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality.[6][29][30] After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes.[31][32] By 2022, the foundation had approximately 6 billion Swedish Kronor of invested capital.[33]
The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" (i idealisk riktning in Swedish) is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" (idealistisk) and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such asHenrik Ibsen andLeo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example,Dario Fo andJosé Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.[34]
There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians, or other inventors.[35]
Sweden's central bankSveriges Riksbank celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1968 by donating a large sum of money to theNobel Foundation to be used to set up a sixth prize in the field of economics in honor of Alfred Nobel. In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-great-nephew, Peter Nobel (born 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether theBank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize".[36][37]
In his letters to his mistress, Hess, Nobel described constant pain, debilitating migraines, and "paralyzing" fatigue, leading some to believe that he suffered fromfibromyalgia. However, his concerns at the time were dismissed ashypochondria, leading to furtherdepression.[38]
Based on his experimentation with explosives, his strenuous work habits, and the decline in his health at the end of the 1870s, some hypothesize thatnitroglycerine poisoning was a contributing factor to his death.[43]
Nobel remained a solitary character, given to periods ofdepression.[6] He never married,[7] although his biographers note that he had at least three loves. His first love was in Russia with a girl named Alexandra, who rejected hismarriage proposal.[46]
In 1876, Austro-Bohemian CountessBertha von Suttner 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, yet she corresponded with him until he died in 1896, and probably influenced his decision to include theNobel Peace Prize in his will.[47] She was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize "for her sincere peace activities".[48]
Nobel's longest-lasting romance was an 18-year relationship with Sofija Hess fromCelje, whom he met in 1876 inBaden bei Wien, where she worked as an employee in a flower shop that catered to wealthy clientele. The extent of their relationship was revealed by a collection of 221 letters sent by Nobel to Hess over 15 years. At the time that they met, Nobel was 43 years old while Hess was 26. Their relationship, which was not merely platonic, ended when she became pregnant with another man, although Nobel continued to support her financially until Hess married her child's father to avoid being ostracized as a whore. Hess was a Jewish Christian, and the letters include remarks by Nobel characterized asantisemitism. Nobel also displayed characteristics ofchauvinism in the letters writing to Hess: "You neither work, nor write, nor read, nor think" and guilted her, writing "I have for years now sacrificed out of purely noble motives my time, my duties, my intellectual life, my reputation".[49][45][50][51][52]
Nobel traveled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America. From 1865 to 1873, Nobel lived in Krümmel (now in the municipality ofGeesthacht, nearHamburg). From 1873 to 1891, he lived in a house on the Avenue Malakoff in Paris.[53]
In 1891, after being accused of high treason against France for sellingBallistite to Italy, he moved from Paris toSanremo, Italy, acquiringVilla Nobel, overlooking theMediterranean Sea, where he died in 1896.[54][55]
In 1894, when he acquired Bofors-Gullspång, theBjörkborn Manor was included, where he stayed during the summers. It is now a museum.[56][57]
TheMonument to Alfred Nobel (Russian:Памятник Альфреду Нобелю,59°57′39″N30°20′06″E / 59.960787°N 30.334905°E /59.960787; 30.334905) is in Saint Petersburg along theBolshaya Nevka River on Petrogradskaya Embankment, the street where Nobel's family lived until 1859.[58] It was dedicated in 1991 to mark the 90th anniversary of the firstNobel Prize presentation. Diplomat Thomas Bertelman and ProfessorArkady Melua were initiators of the creation of the monument in 1989, and they provided funds for the establishment of the monument. The abstract metal sculpture was designed by local artists Sergey Alipov and Pavel Shevchenko, and appears to be an explosion or branches of a tree.[59]
Criticism of Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales. Some people question his motives in creating his prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation.[60][61] For example, the 1984public artworkNobel Metamorphoses inTroisdorf, Germany – at the time the location of theDynamit Nobel headquarters, the sculpture critically contrasts war death statistics to peace prize recipients since the latter's inauguration in 1901.[62]
Nobel has also been criticized for displays ofantisemitism.[45][49] In his letters to Hess, he wrote, "In my experience, [Jews] never do anything out of goodwill. They act merely out of selfishness or a desire to show off .... among selfish and inconsiderate people, they are the most selfish and inconsiderate... all others exist to be fleeced."[50]
^Holmin, L. R. (1996). "Alfred nobel".Journal of Clinical Rheumatology: Practical Reports on Rheumatic & Musculoskeletal Diseases.2 (5):251–256.doi:10.1097/00124743-199610000-00004.PMID19078079.
^Kantha, S. S. (October 1997). "Could nitroglycerine poisoning be the cause of Alfred Nobel's anginal pains and premature death?".Medical Hypotheses.49 (4):303–306.doi:10.1016/s0306-9877(97)90195-x.PMID9352499.
