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Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( October 21, 1833 - December 10, 1896), Swedish chemist, engineer and the inventor of dynamite. In his last will, he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes. The synthetic element Nobelium was named after him.1 Personal background
Alfred was the third son of Emmanuel Nobel (1801-1872), born at Stockholm, but, at an early age he went with his family to St. Petersburg, where his father started a torpedo works. In 1859 this was left to the care of the second son, Ludvig Emmanuel (1831-1888), by whom it was greatly enlarged, and Alfred, returning to Sweden with his father after the bankruptcy of their family business, devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin (discovered in 1847 by Ascanio SobreroAscanio Sobrero ( 1812- 1888) was an Italian scientist who discovered nitroglycerin in 1847 while working under Theophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Torino, who had worked with the explosive material guncotton. He initially called his discovery "p, a fellow-student with Alfred under Théophile-Jules PelouzeTheophile-Jules Pelouze (also known as Jules Pelouze Theophile Pelouze Theo Pelouze or TJ Pelouze was a French chemist. He was born February 26, 1807 at Valognes, and died in Paris in 1867. His father, Edmond Pelouze, was an industrial chemist and the aut at the University of Torino). Several explosions were reported at their family-owned factory in Heleneborg , and a disastrous one in 1864Events January March January 21 Maori Wars: The Tauranga Campaign starts. February 27 American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. March 1- Alejandro Mon Menendez takes office as Prime Minist killed Alfred's younger brother Emil and several other workers.
Less well-known is the fact that Alfred Nobel was also a playwright. His only play ( NemesisNemesis is a tragedy in four acts written by Alfred Nobel, the man behind the Nobel Prizes. The play was written, in prose, shortly before his death and printed while he was dying. Following Nobel's death the entire printed edition was destroyed, except f, a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci , partly inspired by Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley ( August 4, 1792 July 8, 1822) was an English Romantic poet. He is now most famous for poems such as " Ozymandias", " Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", and "The Masque of Anarchy"; for his association with contemporaries John Kea's blank verse tragedy in five acts The Cenci ), was printed when he was dying, and the whole stock except three copies was destroyed immediately after his death, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. The first surviving edition (bilingual Swedish- EsperantoEsperanto is a planned ( constructed) international auxiliary language. The name derives from the pseudonym (Dr. Esperanto) under which L. Zamenhof published the language in 1887. See Esperanto history. His intention was to create an easy-to-learn languag) was published in Sweden in 2003. The play has not yet (May 2003) been translated into English, or into any other language than Esperanto.
Alfred Nobel is interred in the Norra begravningsplatsenNorra begravningsplatsen translated as the "Northern Burial Place" but often referred to as the Northern Cemetery, is a major cemetery of Stockholm, Sweden in the area of the city known as Solna. Inaugurated on June 9, 1827, it is the burial site for a nu in Stockholm.
2 Dynamite
Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated with an absorbent, inert substance like kieselguhr ( diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to manipulate, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as dynamite.
He next combined nitroglycerin with another high explosive, gun-cotton, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a still more powerful explosive than dynamite. Blasting gelatin, as it was called, was patented in 1876, and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate, wood-pulp and various other substances.
Some thirteen years later Nobel produced ballistite, one of the earliest of the nitroglycerin smokeless gunpowders, containing in its latest forms about equal parts of gun-cotton and nitroglycerin. This powder was a precursor of cordite, and Nobel's claim that his patent covered the latter was the occasion of vigorously contested law-suits between him and the British Government in 1894 and 1895. Cordite also consists of nitroglycerin and gun-cotton, but the form of the latter which its inventors wished to use was the most highly nitrated variety, which is not soluble in mixtures of ether and alcohol, whereas Nobel contemplated using a less nitrated form, which is soluble in such mixtures. The question was complicated by the fact that it is in practice impossible to prepare either of these two forms without admixture of the other; but eventually the courts decided against Nobel.
