Alfred Nobel Essay, Research Paper

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 21, 1833.(Encarta) His

father Immanuel Nobel was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and

buildings in Stockholm. In connection with his construction work Immanuel Nobel

also experimented with different techniques of blasting rock. Alfred’s mother,

Andrietta Ahlsell came from a wealthy family. Due to misfortunes in the

construction work caused by the loss of some barges of building material,

Immanuel Nobel was forced into bankruptcy the same year Alfred Nobel was born.

In 1837, Immanuel Nobel left Stockholm and his family to start a new career in

Finland and in Russia. To support the family, Andrietta Nobel started a grocery

store which provided a modest income. Meanwhile Immanuel Nobel was successful in

his new enterprise in St. Petersburg, Russia. He started a mechanical workshop

which provided equipment for the Russian army and he also convinced the Tsar and

his generals that naval mines could be used to block enemy naval ships from

threatening the city. The naval mines designed by Immanuel Nobel were simple

devices consisting of submerged wooden casks filled with gun powder. Anchored

below the surface of the Gulf of Finland they effectively deterred the British

Royal Navy from moving into firing range of St. Petersburg during the Crimean

war (1853-1856).

Immanuel Nobel was also a pioneer in arms manufacture and in designing steam

engines. Successful in his industrial and business ventures, Immanuel Nobel was

able, in 1842, to bring his family to St. Petersburg. There, his sons were given

a first class education by private teachers. The training included natural

sciences, languages and literature. By the age of 17, Alfred Nobel was fluent in

Swedish, Russian, French, English and German. His primary interests were in

English literature and poetry as well as in chemistry and physics. Alfred’s

father, who wanted his sons to join his enterprise as engineers, disliked

Alfred’s interest in poetry and found his son rather introverted. In order to

widen Alfred’s horizons his father sent him abroad for further training in

chemical engineering. During a two year period, Alfred Nobel visited Sweden,

Germany, France and the United States.(Schuck p. 113) In Paris, the city he

came to like best, he worked in the private laboratory of Professor T.J. Pelouze,

a famous chemist. There he met the young Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero who,

three years earlier, had invented nitroglycerin, a highly explosive liquid.

Nitroglycerin was produced by mixing glycerin with sulfuric and nitric acid. It

was considered too dangerous to be of any practical use.(Schuck p. 87) Although

its explosive power greatly exceeded that of gun powder, the liquid would

explode in a very unpredictable manner if subjected to heat and pressure.

Alfred Nobel became very interested in nitroglycerin and how it could be put to

practical use in construction work. He also realized that the safety problems

had to be solved and a method had to be developed for the controlled detonation

of nitroglycerin. In the United States he visited John Ericsson, the Swedish-

American engineer who had developed the screw propeller for ships. In 1852,

Alfred Nobel was asked to come back and work in the family enterprise which was

booming because of its deliveries to the Russian army. Together with his father

he performed experiments to develop nitroglycerin as a commercially and

technically useful explosive. As the war ended and conditions changed, Immanuel

Nobel was again forced into bankruptcy. Immanuel and two of his sons, Alfred and

Emil, left St. Petersburg together and returned to Stockholm. His other two sons,

Robert and Ludvig, remained in St. Petersburg. With some difficulties they

managed to salvage the family enterprise and then went on to develop the oil

industry in the southern part of the Russian empire. They were very successful

and became some of the wealthiest persons of their time. (Compton’s)

After his return to Sweden in 1863, Alfred Nobel concentrated on developing

nitroglycerin as an explosive. Several explosions, including one (1864) in which

his brother Emil and several other persons were killed, convinced the

authorities that nitroglycerin production was exceedingly dangerous. They

forbade further experimentation with nitroglycerin within the Stockholm city

limits and Alfred Nobel had to move his experimentation to a barge anchored on

Lake M?laren. Alfred was not discouraged and in 1864 he was able to start mass

production of nitroglycerin. To make the handling of nitroglycerin safer Alfred

Nobel experimented with different additives. He soon found that mixing

nitroglycerin with silica would turn the liquid into a paste which could be

shaped into rods of a size and form suitable for insertion into drilling

holes.(Internet Site) In 1867 he patented this material under the name of

dynamite. To be able to detonate the dynamite rods he also invented a detonator

(blasting cap) which could be ignited by lighting a fuse. These inventions were

made at the same time as the diamond drilling crown and the pneumatic drill came

into general use. Together these inventions drastically reduced the cost of

blasting rock, drilling tunnels, building canals and many other forms of

construction work. The market for dynamite and detonating caps grew very

rapidly and Alfred Nobel also proved himself to be a very skillful entrepreneur

and business man.

By 1865 his factory in Kr?mmel near Hamburg, Germany, was exporting

nitroglycerin explosives to other countries in Europe, America and Australia.

Over the years he founded factories and laboratories in some 90 different places

in more than 20 countries.(Encarta) Although he lived in Paris much of his life

he was constantly traveling. Victor Hugo at one time described him as “Europe’s

richest vagabond.” When he was not traveling or engaging in business activities

Nobel himself worked intensively in his various laboratories, first in Stockholm

and later in Hamburg (Germany), Ardeer (Scotland), Paris (France), Karlskoga

(Sweden) and San Remo (Italy). He focused on the development of explosives

technology as well as other chemical inventions, including such materials as

synthetic rubber and leather, artificial silk etc. By the time of his death in

1896 he had 355 patents.(Compton’s)

Intensive work and travel did not leave much time for a private life. At the age

of 43 he was feeling like an old man. At this time he advertised in a newspaper

“Wealthy, highly educated elderly gentleman seeks lady of mature age, versed in

languages, as secretary and supervisor of household.” The most qualified

applicant turned out to be an Austrian woman, Countess Bertha Kinsky. After

working for Nobel for about two months she decided to return to Austria to marry

Count Arthur on Suture. In spite of this Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner

remained friends and kept writing letters to each other for decades. Over the

years Bertha von Suttner became increasingly critical of the arms race. She

wrote a famous book, titled, “Lay Down Arms” and became a prominent figure in

the peace movement. No doubt this influenced Alfred Nobel when he wrote his

final will which was to include a Prize for persons or organizations who

promoted peace. Several years after the death of Alfred Nobel, the Norwegian

Storting (Parliament) decided to award the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize to Bertha von

Suttner.

Alfred Nobel’s greatness lay in his ability to combine the penetrating mind of

the scientist and inventor with the forward-looking dynamism of the

industrialist. Nobel was very interested in social and peace-related issues and

held what were considered radical views in his era. He had a great interest in

literature and wrote his own poetry and dramatic works. The Nobel Prizes became

an extension and a fulfillment of his lifetime interests.

Many of the companies founded by Nobel have developed into industrial

enterprises that still play a prominent role in the world economy, for example

Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Great Britain, Soci?t? Centrale de Dynamite,

France, and Dyno Industries in Norway. Toward the end of his life, he acquired

the company AB Bofors in Karlskoga, where Bj?rkborn Manor became his Swedish

home.

Alfred Nobel died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896. When his will was

opened it came as a surprise that his fortune was to be used for Prizes in

Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. The executors

of his will were two young engineers, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist.

They set about forming the Nobel Foundation as an organization to take care of

the financial assets left by Nobel for this purpose and to coordinate the work

of the Prize-Awarding Institutions. This was not without its difficulties since

the will was contested by relatives and questioned by authorities in various

countries.

But as we all know, the legacy of Alfred Nobel lives on today. The prizes named

after him are still the most coveted prizes for the recipients in their

respective fields. Everyone will remember Alfred Nobel as a daring pioneer who

knew no limits.

Many of the new advanced scientific discoveries made in the last century were

surely helped out by the work of Nobel. His Nobel prizes reward people of

science and enable them to keep churning out new ways of accomplishing new feats

that have never been attempted before

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