Descendents of the Scanian farmers of the southern tip of Sweden, the original name of Nopbel family was Nobelius. it was so that in the 17th century, its first family member took the name Nobel as a mark of having educated at the university. earlier the name Nobelius was selected as he was born in a parish church of Nobbelov.
It was Petrus Olavi Nobelius, abound with talent in music and other fields, who met Olof Rudbeck, an intellectual leader at the University of Uppsala, founder of musical life at the university and around the place in general. On coming of age, he ended up marrying Rudbeck's daughter and from this couple descended the family of Nobel. It was one of his grandsons who as a youth in military service, adopted the name Nobel. And now, that seems to go for eternity due to one man down the lineage, called Alfred.
The reference to Rudbeck is of exceptional importance. The Nobel progenies inherited his inventiveness, love for arts and music, and last but not the least, his scientific temper. All this was evident in the Immanuel Nobel, his illustrious son Alfred and his siblings. A practical man all his life, with no formal education nor any knowledge of languages, he was a powerhouse of ideas. All that displayed his uncanny ability and exceptional intelligence - a genius.
Immanuel Nobel was a self-taught inventor and building contractor in Stockholm. He grew up in a poor family without formal education. His father taught him how to read and write. At 14, he became a cabin boy and went on a three year tour to the Mediterranean from Galve, a port city in Northern Sweden. On his return , he was
first apprenticed to a Builder there only to shift to Stockholm to join school of architecture of the Academy of Art - or Mechanical School. Prcticing as an Architect at 24 or 25, he dived headlong in to the profession, only to go bankrupt. The cause being a building he bought burned down in 1833.
His mother Caroline Nobel (maiden name Andrietta Ahlsell), was a gifted woman and the daughter of an accountant. Earlier, in 1827, she married Immanuel Nobel and for a couple of years, the two lived in Stockholm under reasonable economic conditions. They had three sons among six children - the eldest Robert involved in Petroleum Industry at Baku, the second, Ludvig, the founder of world famous arms factory at St. Petersburg and also caring the Baku venture finances. The third and the youngest was our hero Alfred, born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Immanuel and Caroline lost two children, in their infancy. Caroline was very supportive and was very close to her son Alfred. After the Nobels went bankrupt in 1833, the family moved to a simpler living quarter at Normansgatan, where Alfred spent the first nine years of his life. When Alfred was four, Immanuel alone moved to St Petersburg, where he started manufacturing submarine mines and torpedoes for the Russian Army, and prospered
CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION
Since Alfred suffered from chronic gastric ailments, he was confined to his house most of the time. His mother was his friend, nurse, teacher and his window to the world. Since he could not go to school, his mother read to him from his brother’s textbooks until he learned to read himself and became a avid reader. Alfred’s intelligence astounded his mother and she hoped that he would turn out to be a genius. When Alfred was eight, he joined school and was thrilled by the change. He was an eager learner and his health also improved. Soon the family rejoined Immanuel in Petersburg. The climate of Petersburg did not suit Alfred’s health. A spinal ailment and chronic cold added to his list of existing ailments.
Immanuel decided to provide first class private tutions to his sons. He employed a Swedish tutor, who taught them Russian. Alfred turned his bedroom into a classroom. He also helped his brothers, Robert and Ludwig in their lessons. Alfred became fluent in English, French, German, Spanish, besides Russian. He would translate entire volume of Voltaire into one of the other languages and then retranslate it back to French. He then would compare the results with the original text. This training enabled him later, to write and speak several languages, each in its own richness, with precision, flexibility and elegance. Under the tutor’s guidance, he became acquainted with the Philosophes of the Enlightenment and discovered Shelley’s poetry. The English romantic’s rebellious spirit, his flaming protests against brutal authority, ignorance and base passions, became his lifelong inspiration. He began to write poetry in the language of his adored Shelley, reserving his mother tongue for prose.
YOUTH
At school, Alfred had picked up interest in chemistry. As he grew older, he found the family business more interesting and thought of promoting, it effectively. Alfred was sent abroad to study and to take care of business interests like buying tools, machinery, raw materials and supplying it with up-to-date technical and financial information. Immanuel then sent Alfred to America in 1850, for further education. There, he met John Erickson who had first designed the screw-propelled steamship in New York. He learnt mechanical techniques at the research room of John Erickson. He placed an order with him for some sketches on behalf of his father. He also spent a year in Paris with Jules Pelouse, a chemist, and it was here that he came to know about nitroglycerine that was found by an Italian scientist Ascanio Sobrero. He traveled to most parts of Europe but lived in Paris most of the time. In 1852, he returned to Russia.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Immanuel wanted his sons to get involved in his business. On his return to Russia, Alfred joined Robert and Ludwig in research and development in their father's factory. In 1853, the Crimean War broke out. As a result, the Nobel Steel and Machinery Manufacturing Company benefited by mass-production of military supplies for the Russian army. But in 1856 when the war was over and Tsar Nicolas I died, the new government unilaterally abolished the on-going contract with the Nobels and they once again faced bankruptcy. This crisis later turned into an opportunity. During the Crimean War, the Nobels had obtained a bottle of liquid explosive - nitroglycerine, which was very powerful but whose attributes were still unknown. However, they had to shelve the research on nitroglycerine and instead concentrated on the production of military supplies. Now that the business was over, Alfred Nobel could once again focus on conducting research on this new material. Alfred quickly saw that the advantages of nitroglycerin over gun powder were numerous and its uses could be exploited for commercial and technical purposes. His first achievement was the invention of the blasting cap (the explosion case), in 1863.
BERTHA VON SUTTNER
His hectic work schedule and travel did not leave him with much time for a private life. At 43, he felt exhausted too. It was at this time that he placed an advertisement in the newspapers, which read. "Wealthy, highly educated, elderly gentleman seeks lady of mature age, versed in languages, as secretary and supervisor of household." The most qualified applicant, an Austrian, Countess Bertha Kinsky was hired. After working for a short time with Nobel she quit to return to Austria and get married to Count Arthur von Suttner. Nobel and Bertha remained friends and corresponded with each other.
According to Bertha, Nobel had expressed a wish to produce material for a machine that would have such a devastating effect that war from then on, would be impossible. In 1891, he commented on his dynamite factories to Bertha saying, "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your Congresses : on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops." Nobel did not live long enough to see the deterring effect of his invention and how wrong his conception was.
Over the years, Bertha became increasingly critical of the arms race. She eventually became a prominent figure in the Peace Movement. This influenced Alfred Nobel a great deal and in his final will, included a prize for "persons or organizations that promoted peace". Years after Nobel's death, the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) decided to award the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize to Bertha von Suttner.
'OTHER' LOVES
Alfred never married. But from his archives, three ladies played important roles in his lifetime. Bertha von Suttner was his second love. His first love finds mention in his poem - You say I am a riddle. It mentions about a beautiful and kind girl whom he met in Paris on his trip abroad (1850-1852).This girl was a clerk in a drugstore. They fell in love with each other. But very soon, she died of pneumonia. Her death was a huge blow to Alfred and doubly so as he then left Paris sadly.
The third one was Sophie Hess whom he met at Vienna, in the fall of 1876. Sophie was just 20, beautiful, attractive but willful and uneducated. A great contrast to Alfred, she cared nothing but fun while he was articulate, emaciated, hysteric and looking for tender love. He helped and comforted her, financing her in every respect. Her returns to him were infidelities. Their relationship stayed on miserably for 18 years until Sophie married someone else. Even after getting married, she didn't stop extorting money from him.
Even after Alfred died in 1896, Sophie kept blackmailing the executor of his will. She threatened him of selling off all the 216 letters that Alfred wrote to her if she was not given more money than what was apportioned to her in the will. To save future headaches, the executor finally gave in and bought them up. The Sophie love affair had doomed his final years with sadness and despair. When Alfred died, the shattered dream for lasting love, was buried with him, forever.
TURNING POINT
In 1853, while he was in Paris he spent a night with a prostitute, which stirred feelings of guilt and shame within him. This traumatic experience racked his mind with terror and remorse. He longed for love in the puritanical sense. One evening at a ball, he met a blonde and talked to her for a long time. Alfred felt "supremely happy and a better man". They went on several dates following the first meeting. The romance, however, came to an end when the girl died suddenly. He longed for a regular family life and would have liked to marry a nice, intelligent girl. Soon, he met one whose name was Alexandra. A deep friendship developed between them but it was not love. Alfred’s proposal was met with refusal. He felt that pure love was impossible, sexual love disgusting and regular marriage seemed to be out of his reach as well. As each emotional desire was frustrated, he resolved to withdraw into the pursuit of scientific research and dedicate his great talents and direct his energies to the service of humanity. He wrote, "Charity is the only incense God accepts from me". Nobel wanted to believe that such dedication could compensate for the personal joys denied to him.
NOBEL & LITERATURE
Alfred Nobel was undoubtedly more renowned for his work as an inventor and industrialist, than for his interest in arts. Literature and writing were 'natural' to him. He left behind a private library of more than 1500 volumes, which included mostly fiction in original languages, works and other classics by the great 19th century writers, philosophers, theologians, historians and other scientists.
He also left behind an extensive collection of letters, a few poems he had written in his youth and some early drafts of analytical novels : "I ljusaste Afrika (In Brightest Africa, 1861) and Systrarna (The Sisters, 1862). Towards the end of life, away from inventions, he also wrote a satirical comedy, The Patent Bacillus (1895) and a tragedy Nemesis (1896). In his will, as a final testimony to his lifelong love for poetry, he allocated a prize to be awarded to a person "who shall have produced in the field of literature, the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."
HIS LAST DAYS
During the final decade of his life, Alfred Nobel had many different homes. In 1891, he left Paris to live in San Remo, Italy. He equipped all his residences with laboratories, so that he could continue his experiments. Though he complained about the Swedish winter, he remained homesick. His health began to deteriorate. He developed angina pectoris and died of cerebral hemorrhage on December 10, 1896, under the very conditions he had so greatly feared, with "no kind hand of a friend or relative to close my eyes and whisper in my ear a gentle and sincere word of comfort". At the time of his death, his empire consisted of 90 factories around the world.
Alfred Nobel led a life full of contradictions. He invented war devices, but committed himself to war peace. Withminimal formal school education, this self-made scientist and entrepreneur had good command over five languages. His pursuit for puritanical love was never ending, yet he never married. Though the manner in which he built his fortune was despised, the Nobel Prizes instituted by the fortune he earned, stand for the world's highest honor today.
NOBLE’S WILL
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way : The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.
The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows : one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of any idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by the Caroline Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be a Scandinavian or not".
BELIEF IN SCIENCE
Nobel was passionate about science, and this was the creed that was to be expressed in the Nobel Science Prizes.
"To spread knowledge," he argued, "is to spread well being," adding that by this he meant general well-being, not individual prosperity. With the arrival of such well being, the greater part of the evil which was "an inheritance from the dark ages" would disappear. "The advance in scientific research and its ever-widening sphere stirs the hope in us that microbes, those of the soul as well as those of the body, will gradually disappear, and that the only war humanity will wage in future be the one against the microbes."
The reference to microbes pointed to another of Nobel's beliefs that he shared with scientists and non-scientists alike. He was keenly interested in medicine, which
had not yet become fully "scientific" by the time of his death. It had nonetheless been profoundly changed during the 19th century, both in its concepts and its practices. Nobel himself carried out a number of medical experiments, and, suffering from ill health throughout the whole of his life, put his trust in medical pioneers who found new remedies.
NOBLE ' PHILOSOPHY '
It is of some interest that during his last years, Nobel was meditating on the atom. In a paper prepared around 1890 called "Philosophic Reflections to be Written", the first item Nobel listed was "interacting atoms", followed immediately by "the functions of the brain, thought and memory".
"I have acquired a sublime contempt for the paltry dimensions of our globe," he also wrote, apparently a little later, "and take the most interest in a much smaller world body, namely the atom. Its form, movements and destinies, both as an individual and as a contributory cell in the life of the universe occupy my thoughts more than they decently ought to."
Nobel had another thought about the ways to peace, which remains topical today :
"I have come to the conclusion," he told a Belgian friend in 1892, "that the only real solution would be a treaty by which the governments bound themselves jointly to defend any country that was attacked. By degrees this would lead to partial disarmament, which is the only thing possible, since there must be an armed force for the maintenance of order."
Nobel added a controversial footnote, however.
"Formerly governments were even more shortsighted, narrow and quarrelsome than their subjects. In our day it looks as if the governments were at all event making an effort to quell such idiotic popular outbursts as are incited by a malicious press."
Better known as inventor of Dynamite, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, was a poet as well as the archetype international capitalist. Because he loathed his own appearance and believed that it denied him the happiness of being loved, Nobel while still young resolved to dedicate his life for the benefit of mankind.
Few Swedish names have earned the fame that Nobel has. People know little about this great inventor whose legacy of $9 million, was earned through a slow, hard earned and painful acquisition. Its fine articulation embodied Nobel’s concept of leadership that steered an industrial society towards general welfare and peace. The story of his life reveals how a minimally educated person on growing rich and famous, maintained benevolent and humane personality.
October 21, 1833 Birth of Alfred Nobel.
His father went bankrupt.
1837 His father moved to St Petersburg.
1842
Joined his father at St Petersburg.
1850
He left for America.
1851
He wrote the poem " You Say I Am A Riddle" of 319 lines.
1857 First patent registered for an improved gasometer.
1859
Patent for wattmeter & improvement of barometer.
His father’s company went bankrupt for the second time.
1863
He got patent for an explosive called blasting oil. Invented detonator.
September 3, 1864
Explosion killed his younger brother.
Founded Nitroglycerine Company.
1865 Nobel’s first company ‘Nitroglycerin Aktiebolaget’ started production.
April 1, 1866 Blasting oil production started at Krummel.
July 12, 1866
First explosion in factory invented ‘ Dynamite’.
1867
Received patent for Dynamite from Great Britain.
1868
Received patent for Dynamite from the United States.
1868 He was awarded the Lefterstedt Prize by Royal Swedish Academy of Science.
1871 Dynamites were used in the Prussian–French War.
1872 His father Immanuel died.
1873 Nobel moved his headquarters from Hamburg to Paris.
1875
He invented a powerful form of dynamite, ‘blasting gelatin’.
1889 His mother Caroline died.
1890 Moved to San Remo.
1893
He founded S G Bofor Company.
1895
He developed angina pectoris.
December 10, 1896
He died in San Remo, Italy.
After his father went bankrupt the second time, Alfred and his parents returned to Sweden. Alfred began experimenting with explosives in a small laboratory on his father’s estate. In spite of his invention of the blasting cap, he was not able to find a safer way to handle nitroglycerine. It was so volatile that once in 1864 while he was experimenting, it blew up Nobel’s factory killing his younger brother, Emil and many other people. This accident did not discourage him. In fact after his accident, Nobel built several factories to produce nitroglycerine with blasting caps, and among them the plants of Krummel, Germany and Vinterviken, Sweden were major. Later, he also built a plant in Norway.
THE BLASTING CAP
At that time the only dependable explosive used in the mines was black powder, a form of gunpowder. Nitroglycerine, a liquid compound that was recently discovered by Ascanio Sobrero was a much more powerful explosive. It could not be handled with any degree of safety, as it was extremely volatile. Alfred began manufacturing nitroglycerine in a small workshop at Helenberg and also concentrated in finding a safe way to handle it. During the research, he invented a detonator consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a larger charge of nitroglycerine held in a metal container. The explosion of the plug’s small charge of black powder aided in detonating the much more powerful charge of liquid nitroglycerine. This invention made Alfred a wealthy man and over a period of time, he gained recognition as an inventor of explosives. On further research on the detonator, he made a new improved detonator called ‘a blasting cap’. The blasting cap consisted of a small metal cap containing a charge of mercury fulminate that exploded either by shock or moderate heat. This invention of the blasting cap launched the use of high explosives in the modern world.
The patent for the manufacture and use of nitroglycerine in the US was granted to Nobel in 1866. A victim of a number of unscrupulous businessmen, he sold his American holdings for only $20,000. After a number of attempts that he made to provide a dependable means for detonating nitroglycerine, Nobel settled on a charge of mercury fulminate, in a copper capsule. With only a couple of minor changes, this blasting cap remained in use until the 1920s.
Nobel invented gelatin, the mixture of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose. This was another important explosive used underwater. This carried the construction of the St Gotthard railroad tunnel explosive. He replaced gunpowder which was previously used in construction projects and mining.
DYNAMITE
This was Nobel’s second most important invention. He observed that a mixture of nitroglycerine and Kieselguhr, a porous siliceous earth, formed a product, which was easy to use and safe to handle. He later named this product dynamite (from the Greek dynamics meaning "Power". This particular invention gave him worldwide fame and prosperity. Soon after he gained patents from Great Britain in 1867 and from the US in 1868, the general composition of Dynamite No. 1 was 75 per cent nitroglycerine and 25 percent guhr. He saw that guhr was an inert gaseous substance and did not contribute much to the explosive power, but detected heat from the power, which would have otherwise improved the blasting action. Thus, he turned to active ingredients like wood pulp and sodium nitrate to improve efficiency in blasting and to vary its strength. Nobel patented the use of active ingredients of dynamite in 1869.
Nobel next contributed by inventing gelatinous dynamites in 1875. There is a legend that he hurt a finger and used ‘collodion’, a solution of relatively low nitrogen content, nitrocellulose, in a mixture of ether and alcohol, to cover the wound. He was unable to sleep because of pain. On next day he went to the laboratory to check the effect of collodion and nitroglycerine. He was surprised to see that after evaporation of the solvent, there remained a tough, plastic material. He discovered that he could duplicate this by the direct addition of 7 to 8 per cent of collodion type nitro-cotton to nitroglycerine and that lesser quantities of nitro-cotton decreased the viscosity and enabled him to add other active ingredients. He called the original material – blasting gelatin and the dope mixture – gelatin dynamites. The principal advantages of these products were their high water resistance and greater blasting action power than the other comparable dynamites. This added power resulted from the combination of higher density and a degree of plasticity that allowed complete filling of the borehole (the hole that was bored in the wall seam or elsewhere for implantation of the explosive).
Three tunnels were constructed by the use of explosives and even today stand out as benchmarks in the history of explosives : Mount Cenis, a 13-kilometer railway tunnel driven through the Alps between France and Italy (1857-71). The other was the 6.4-kilometer Hoosac Railway Project, during the construction of which nitroglycerine first replaced black powder in large-scale construction (1855-66) and the Sutromine Development Tunnel in Nevada (1864-74) where the switch from nitroglycerine to dynamite for this type of work started.
His inventions were made when the diamond drilling crown and the pneumatic drill came into the market. Together, these inventions cut down the cost of blasting rock, drilling tunnels and many other forms of construction work. Alfred Nobel went on to be a successful businessman in the developing market of dynamite and detonating caps. In a very short period, he built factories and laboratories in 20 different countries. His factory in Krummel near Hamburg, Germany started exporting nitroglycerine explosive to countries in Europe, America and Australia. He also concentrated on other inventions such as synthetic rubber and leather, artificial silk, chemical and explosive technologies. He was granted patents for 355 items before his death.
OTHER INVENTIONS
Besides explosives, Alfred Nobel also invented the following : nitroglycerine-applied fuse, soundless gunfire, hardening treatment for metals, welding, melting, bullets-stabilizing, gas-powered marine equipment and its safety and salvage missiles. His experiments and researches on artificial rubber, man-made leather, paints or dye-stuffs based on nitric acid fiber and imitation jewelry did not yield direct results but have helped usher successes in later generations.
Among them, the production of artificial silk merits a mentioning. This is another application of nitric acid fiber. The related researches were done in San Remo from 1893 to 1894. Later in 1896, Alfred patented his glass-made press nozzle which had a minute hole. Under high pressure, the nitric acid fiber would be squeezed out of the minute hole of the press nozzle and would coagulate into artificial silk. This invention brought a huge impact on the textile industry.
• Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness.
• My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed. They surely will abide by golden peace.
• To spread knowledge is to spread well-being....
• If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
• I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries."
. This particular invention gave him worldwide fame and prosperity. Soon after he gained patents from Great Britain in 1867 and from the US in 1868, the general composition of Dynamite No. 1 was 75 per cent nitroglycerine and 25 percent guhr. He saw that guhr was an inert gaseous substance and did not contribute much to the explosive power, but detected heat from the power, which would have otherwise improved the blasting action. Thus, he turned to active ingredients like wood pulp and sodium nitrate to improve efficiency in blasting and to vary its strength. Nobel patented the use of active ingredients of dynamite in 1869. 
