Alfred Bernhard Nobel is a Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist who invented dynamite and more powerful explosives, and also founded the Nobel Prize.
Biography
The future inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm (Sweden) 10.21.1833. He was the fourth son of Emanuel and Carolina Nobel. Emanuel was an engineer who married Carolina Andrietta Alzel in 1827. The couple had eight children, of whom only Alfred and three brothers reached adulthood. In childhood, Nobel was often sick, but from an early age showed a lively curiosity. He was interested in explosives and learned the basics of engineering from his father. My father, meanwhile, suffered setbacks in various commercial enterprises, until in 1837 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he became a successful manufacturer of mines and tools.
Life abroad
In 1842, the Nobel family left Stockholm to join their father in St. Petersburg. The rich parents of Alfred could now hire him private teachers, and he turned out to be an impatient student. By the age of 16, Nobel became an experienced chemist who was fluent in English, German, French and Russian.
In 1850, Alfred left Russia to spend a year in Paris studying chemistry, and then four years in the United States, working under the leadership of John Erickson, who was involved in the creation of the battleship Monitor. Upon returning to St. Petersburg, he worked at his father’s factory, which produced military equipment during the Crimean War. At the end of hostilities in 1856, the company hardly switched to the manufacture of equipment for steamboats and went bankrupt in 1859.
Bet on nitroglycerin
The future dynamite inventor in Russia did not stay and returned to Sweden with his parents, and his brothers Robert and Ludwig decided to save the remnants of the family business. Soon, Alfred began experimenting with explosives in a small laboratory on his father's estate. At that time, the only reliable explosives used in mines were black powder. The newly created liquid nitroglycerin was much more powerful, but it was so unstable that it could not provide any kind of safety. Nevertheless, in 1862, Nobel built a small plant for its production, while conducting research in the hope of finding a way to control its detonation.
In 1863, he invented a practical detonator, consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a large charge of nitroglycerin stored in a metal container. An explosion of a small charge of black powder in the plug detonated a much more powerful charge of liquid explosives. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobel’s reputation as an inventor, as well as his fortune, which he would acquire as a manufacturer of explosives.
In 1865, Alfred created an improved detonator capsule, which consisted of a small metal cover with a charge of explosive mercury, undermined either by impact or by moderate heating. This invention was the beginning of the modern use of explosives.
Accident
Nitroglycerin itself, however, was difficult to transport, and it was extremely dangerous to handle. So dangerous that the Nobel factory exploded in 1864, killing the lives of his younger brother Emil and other people. Not afraid of this tragic accident, Alfred built several nitroglycerin factories for use with his capsules. These enterprises were as safe as the knowledge of the time allowed, but random explosions continued to occur.
Good luck
Nobel’s second important invention was dynamite. In 1867, he accidentally discovered that nitroglycerin is completely absorbed by porous silica, and the resulting mixture was much safer to use and easier to handle. Alfred - the inventor of dynamite (from the Greek δύναμις, "strength") - received patents for it in Great Britain (1867) and the USA (1868). Explosives glorified its creator all over the world, and soon it began to be used in the construction of tunnels and canals, and in the construction of railways and highways.
Explosive jelly
In the 1870–80s, dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel built a network of explosive factories throughout Europe and formed a network of corporations for their sale. He also continued to experiment in search of the best of them, and in 1875 created a more powerful form of dynamite, an explosive jelly, which he patented the following year. Again, by chance, he discovered that a mixture of a solution of nitroglycerin with a loose fibrous substance, known as nitrocellulose, forms a dense, ductile material with high water resistance and greater blast power. In 1887, Nobel introduced ballistite, nitroglycerin smokeless powder and the precursor of cordite. Although Alfred held patents for dynamite and other explosives, he was in constant conflict with competitors who stole his technology, which forced him to file protracted patent disputes several times.
Oil, weapons, wealth
The Nobel brothers , Ludwig and Robert, meanwhile, developed the recently discovered oil fields near Baku (now in Azerbaijan) near the Caspian Sea and themselves became very wealthy people. Worldwide sales of explosives, as well as participation in brothers' companies in Russia brought Alfred a huge fortune. In 1893, the inventor of dynamite became interested in the military industry in Sweden, and the next year he bought an iron smelter in Bofors, near Vermland, which became the center of the famous arms factory. In addition to explosives, Nobel came up with many other things, such as rayon and leather, and in general he registered more than 350 patents in various countries.
Ascetic, writer, pacifist
The inventor of dynamite Nobel was a complex person, which puzzled his contemporaries. Although business interests required him to travel almost constantly, he remained a solitary hermit who was prone to bouts of depression. Alfred led a secluded and simple life, he was a man of ascetic habits, but he could be a polite host, a good listener, and a man of penetrating mind.
The inventor of dynamite was never married, and, apparently, preferred the joy of creativity to romantic affection. He had an enduring interest in literature, he wrote plays, novels and poems, which almost completely remained unpublished. He had amazing energy, and it was not easy for him to relax after intense work. Among his contemporaries, he enjoyed the reputation of a liberal or even a socialist, but in reality he did not trust democracy, was against suffrage for women and supported soft paternalism in relation to his many employees. Although the Swedish inventor of dynamite was essentially a pacifist and hoped that the destructive power of his creations would help put an end to the war, his view of humanity and peoples was pessimistic.
Testament surprise
By 1895, Alfred developed angina pectoris, and on December 10 of the following year he died of a brain hemorrhage in his own villa in San Remo (Italy). By this time, the Nobel business empire consisted of more than 90 factories for the production of explosives and ammunition. His will, drawn up in Paris on 11/27/1895 and deposited with a bank in Stockholm, contained a big surprise for his family, friends and the general public. The inventor of dynamite has always been generous to humanitarian and scientific charitable institutions and has left most of his fortune in trust to establish the most highly valued international award, the Nobel Prize.
Death Merchant's Death
One can only guess about the reasons for this decision. He was secretive and did not tell anyone about any of his decisions for the several months preceding his death. The most plausible assumption is that the strange incident that occurred in 1888 may have caused a chain of thought that led to his will. In the same year, Alfred’s brother Ludwig died while in Cannes, France. The French press reported the death of his brother, but confused him with Alfred, and one of the newspapers came out with the headline "The Merchant of Death has died." Perhaps the inventor of dynamite established prizes in order to avoid just this kind of posthumous reputation expressed by this premature obituary. It is obvious that the established awards reflect his interest in chemistry, physics, physiology and literature. There is also plenty of evidence that his friendship with prominent Austrian pacifist Berta von Zuttner inspired him to create a Peace Prize.
Nobel himself, however, remains a figure full of paradoxes and contradictions: a brilliant lonely man, partly pessimist and partly idealist, who invented the powerful explosives used in modern warfare and set the most prestigious awards in the world for the intellectual services rendered to humanity.