AlfredNobel was a famous 19th-century Swedish scientist and entrepreneur. His name was marked in history for having been the dynamite inventor, explosive of great destructive power, and also responsible for the creation of the Nobel Prize, an award dedicated to honoring people who carry out great actions for the benefit of humanity.
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First years
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833. He was the third of eight children born to Immanuel Nobel and Karolina Andriette Nobel. However, the extreme poverty experienced by the family meant that only he and three other brothers (Emil, Robert and Ludvig) survived childhood. His father was an inventor and engineer, and Nobel's scientific interest came from watching his father at work.
![Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm and became one of the most successful men of the 19th century.[1]](/f/db5b564b4ad06edbe00e4ee95fc892d8.jpg)
To try to improve his life, Immanuel Nobel decided to move to Russia and settle in Saint Petersburg
. There he managed to prosper as a manufacturer of machinery and explosives, and his company was in good financial health, especially in the years of Crimean War (1853-1856). With the success of the business, Immanuel took his entire family to Russia.Alfred attended school in Stockholm (for a very short time) and, in Russia, he had access to good tutors, managing to expand his knowledge in chemistry and in several languages. He spokeSwedish, Russian, English, French and German fluently and took advantage of the period of good financial condition of his family to invest in his studies.
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Interest in chemistry
In 1850, he went to Paris to work in a chemistry laboratory together with Jules Pélouze and Ascanio Sobrero. The Italian scientist (Ascanio Sobrero), by the way, was the inventor of nitroglycerin, a compound that Nobel had known about since the period when he took chemistry classes in Russia.
THE nitroglycerin is a substance produced by a mixture of glycerin, nitric acid and sulfuric acid, highly explosive and that can cause serious accidents with sudden changes in temperature and even sudden movements. Nobel spent a good part of his life studying this substance with the aim of making it more manageable.
He spent the year 1851 studying in the United States and, in 1852, he returned to Russia to work in his father's company. The family's good condition ended in 1856, when his father's business went into crisis because of the end of the Crimean War. Immanuel Nobel decided to return to Sweden at the end of that decade, but Alfred and two of his brothers remained in Russia.
You studies with nitroglycerin they continued, and Alfred decided to return to Sweden and produce the substance there. In 1863, he patented his first invention: adetonator. It was the first of hundreds of patents held by him and paved the way for his enrichment.
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Dynamite invention
In 1864, Alfred Nobel faced a major setback. It produced nitroglycerin in the city of Stockholm, but a accident at his factory led to the death of his brother Emil and four other people. The city hall did not allow him to continue producing the substance there and, only in 1867, Nobel managed to find a solution to the instability of nitroglycerin.
Nobel mixed nitroglycerin with diatomite, an inert solution with great absorption capacity. This mixture worked, and the result was a more stable explosive, which was patented and named by him as dynamite, in reference to the Greek word dynamis, which means “power”. The invention of dynamite and the possession of the patent for this explosive ensured the Nobel enrichment.
The new explosive, as well as the detonators created by it, became key products for mining companies and companies that built railroads. This allowed Nobel to open factories throughout Europe, making him a millionaire man.
business expansion
Nobel continued to look for ways to produce more powerful explosives and from these studies came the nitroglyceringelatinized. He also invented a propellant — known as ballistitis —which added to the range of products manufactured by Nobel's factories in the United States and Europe.
When he was already a successful businessman, Nobel decided invest in building a refinery in Baku, Azerbaijan. This happened after one of his brothers found oil in the region. The Nobel-financed oil refinery became one of the largest in the world in the 19th century. Other activities performed by him were the production of synthetic rubber and leather and artificial silk.
Last years
Alfred Nobel was a successful man, but that financial success was not repeated in other areas of his life. He never got married, but his biographers tell of an episode in which Nobel fell in love with his governess, the Austrian Bertha Felicie Sophie Gräfin Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau.
She worked for Nobel for a few weeks, leaving the service to marry Arthur von Suttner. From then on, it became known as Bertha von Suttner, and her name was recorded in history as one of the main pacifists in the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many believe that her pacifist positions weighed heavily on Nobel's opinions.
Nobel's achievements earned him many honors, both in Sweden and abroad. In Sweden, for example, he was honored by the Swedish Academy of Sciences and became a member of the same institution in 1884.
He lived in various places, such as Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Hamburg, but much of his life was lived in Paris. Nobel had a home in the French capital from 1873 to 1891, but was expelled from the country on charges of having carried out industrial espionage for the benefit of the Italian government. The last years of his life, he lived in San Remo, Italy, where he died on December 10, 1896, aged 63 years.
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Nobel Prize
A year before his death, Nobel redid his will, leaving instructions that marked the story. At the end of his life, Nobel owned 355 patents and had more than 90 factories, owning a huge fortune. He got rich producing weapons, but decided to leave his possessions to create an institution that promotes peace.
![The Nobel Prize was created in respect of Alfred Nobel's testament and serves to honor people with great contributions to humanity.[2]](/f/7aabd742490c1380e080ae4ca3c69ea7.jpg)
The idea was to use the money to reward people who made significant contributions to humanity. This decision was described in his will, signed on November 27, 1895. Thus was born the Prêmy Nobel.
Nobel's relatives didn't like the idea of seeing their fortune used for this purpose. Only after four years did the Nobel Prize really start to happen. One of the Nobel Prize winners was the one mentioned Bertha von Suttner, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1905.
Image credits
[1] NoPainNoGain and Shutterstock
[2] fast and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
History teacher
