Alfred Nobel(1833-1896) - Swedish experimental chemist and businessman, Ph.D. and academician, inventor of dynamite and other explosives, founder of a charitable foundation for the award of his name - the Nobel Prize, which brought him posthumous fame.

A. Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm in the family of the talented self-taught inventor Immanuel Nobel, a native of the peasants of the southern Swedish district of Nobelef, which is the origin of the family name. The head of the family became famous and rich in Russian service, especially during the Crimean War. Mines made at his factory protected the raids of Kronstadt and Revel from the attack of the English squadron. For his services to Russia, he received a large imperial gold medal, which, as a rule, was not awarded to foreigners.

Although Alfred Nobel was very talented, he did not even receive a secondary education. In 1849, his father sent young Alfred on a two-year journey through Europe and America. Alfred spends most of this trip in Paris. There he takes a practical course in chemistry and physics in the laboratory of the famous chemist Jules Peloua, who researched oil and discovered nitriles. After his father left for Stockholm, Alfred Nobel began researching the properties of nitroglycerin. It is likely that this was facilitated by Nobel’s frequent communication with the outstanding Russian chemist Nikolai Nikolaevich Zinin.

In Paris, young Nobel was received at the court of Napoleon III, where he reads romantic poetry and falls in love with a young black-eyed brunette from Provence, who soon dies of consumption. Heartbroken, Nobel leaves for America, where he meets the famous Swedish engineer John Erikson, who built for Lincoln the unusual ship "Monitor", which bravely destroyed the southern fleet. Erickson conducted experiments on the use of solar energy and introduced his compatriot to invention.

In Stockholm, where Alfred left in 1863, he continued his experiments. But on September 3, 1864, tragedy struck. The explosion during the experiments killed several people, including Alfred's younger brother Emil-Oscar, who was only 20 years old. Soon after the accident, my father was paralyzed, and he spent the last eight years bedridden.

On October 14, 1864, Alfred Nobel took out a patent for the right to produce an explosive containing nitroglycerin. This was followed by patents for the detonator ("Nobel fuse"), dynamite, gelled dynamite, smokeless powder, etc. and so on. In total, he owns 350 patents, and not all of them are related to explosives. Among them are patents for a water meter, a barometer, a refrigeration apparatus, a gas burner, an improved method for producing sulfuric acid, the design of a combat missile, and much more.

Nobel's interests were extremely varied. He studied electrochemistry and optics, biology and medicine, designed automatic brakes and safe steam boilers, tried to make artificial rubber and leather, studied nitrocellulose and rayon, and worked on producing light alloys.

He was one of the most educated people of his time. He read many books on technology and medicine, history and philosophy, fiction (and even tried to write himself), was acquainted with kings and ministers, scientists and entrepreneurs, artists and writers, for example, Victor Hugo.

Alfred Nobel was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, and the Paris Society of Civil Engineers. Uppsala University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Philosophy. Among the inventor's awards are the Swedish Order of the Polar Star, the French Legion of Honor, the Brazilian Order of the Rose and the Venezuelan Bolivar. But all the honors left him indifferent. He was a gloomy man who loved solitude, avoided cheerful companies and was completely immersed in work.

Nobel's main wealth came from the production of dynamite, which he invented, a patent for which was received on May 7, 1867. Newspapers of those years wrote that the engineer made his discovery by accident. During transportation, a bottle of nitroglycerin broke, the spilled liquid soaked the ground, and the result was dynamite. Nobel always denied this. He claimed that he was deliberately looking for a substance that, when mixed with nitroglycerin, would reduce its explosiveness. Kieselguhr became such a neutralizer. This rock is also called tripoli (from Tripoli in Libya, where it was mined).

It may seem strange that a man who devoted his entire life to creating powerful means of destruction bequeathed part of the money he earned to the peace prize. What is this? Redemption? But for military purposes, “Nobel’s explosives” began to be used only during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and at first the explosives he created were used for peaceful purposes: for the construction of tunnels and canals using blasting, laying railways and roads, mining mineral. He himself said: “I would like to invent a substance or machine with such destructive power that any war would become impossible.” Nobel gave money for congresses dedicated to peace issues and took part in them.

While some are surprised by the presence of the Nobel Peace Prize, others are surprised by the absence of a prize for work in mathematics. Rumor has it that Nobel and the famous Swedish mathematician M. G. Mittag-Leffler loved the same girl, but she preferred the younger one, and as if that is why the “dynamite king” was offended by all mathematicians.

The great inventor never married and had no children. But there was love in his life. At the age of 43, Alfred Nobel fell in love with a 20-year-old flower shop saleswoman in Vienna, Sophie Hess (1856-1919), and took him with him to Paris, where he then lived. He rented an apartment for her next to his house and allowed her to spend as much as she wanted. Sophie, who proudly called herself “Madame Nobel,” was beautiful and graceful, but, unfortunately, stupid, uneducated, and also lazy - she refused to study with the teachers that Nobel hired for her.

Their relationship lasted 15 years, until 1891, when Sophie gave birth to a daughter from a Hungarian officer. Nobel broke up with his girlfriend without a scandal and even gave her a decent allowance. But Sophie was used to exorbitant spending and was annoyed by requests for additional amounts. When four years later she married the father of her child, her husband made similar requests. After Nobel's death, Sophie Hess began to demand an increase in content, threatening otherwise to publish his intimate letters. The executors, who did not want their client’s name to be splashed across the newspapers, had to make concessions: buy Nobel’s letters and telegrams from Sophie and increase her annuity.

Since childhood, Nobel was in poor health and often fell ill. In recent years he was tormented by heart pain. “Isn’t it ironic,” he wrote to one acquaintance, “that I was prescribed nitroglycerin! Doctors call it trinitrine so as not to scare off pharmacists and patients.”

Contemporaries considered Nobel to be inconsistent with the image of a successful capitalist. More like a "Spartan". He gravitated towards solitude, did not drink, did not smoke, and was not a gambler. He spoke fluently in 5 foreign languages ​​(see also about the course for effectively mastering foreign languages). Commerce did not serve as an obstacle to familiarization with world cultural values. In Nobel's personal library one could find the works of great scientists, philosophers, writers Herbert Spencer, Voltaire, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, Ivan Turgenev, Heinrich Ibsen, Alphonse Lamartine rejected the naturalism of Emile Zola. He wrote many plays, novels, and poems, but suddenly lost interest in writing. And it is unknown what would be better for civilization: losing a great writer or finding an outstanding scientist and talented entrepreneur.

A. Nobel had an excellent researcher's mentality and loved studying in his laboratory. Nobel managed an empire scattered around the world with the help of a whole “team” of directors of numerous independent companies, in which Nobel had a 20-30% share of capital. He personally reviewed the details of major decisions made by companies using his name in their name. According to one of his biographers, “in addition to scientific and commercial activities, Nobel spent a lot of time conducting extensive correspondence, and he copied every detail from business correspondence only himself, starting with issuing invoices and ending with accounting calculations.”

Alfred Nobel's career becomes more significant if we look at the origins of his family name, which has peasant origins. Information about it appears at the end of the 17th century. with the addition of the nickname Nobelius. Alfred's grandfather, a barber-bloodletter, shortened his surname in 1775. His eldest son, Emmanuel, an architect, builder and inventor, did odd jobs until his family decided to try their luck in Russia, in the oil fields of Baku. In 1827 he married Caroline Andriette Alsel, they had eight children, but only three of whom survived into adolescence - Robert, Ludwig and Alfred.

Alfred Nobel's women

Nobel was an attractive man, but he never married and had no children. Alfred had no luck with women. Why? Like many other facts of life, these details of his biography are hidden. At first, Nobel fell in love with a pharmacy worker. She dies, and this shocked him so much that he could not care for women for two decades.

In Paris, he is a regular at theater premieres; he goes to the Comédie Française and applauds the brilliant Sarah Bernhardt. Fascinated by her talent, he hurries backstage with a bouquet of flowers and a chrysanthemum in his buttonhole and invites the actress to a restaurant. And an inner voice whispers: “I need a woman to create a home, comfort. Is a great actress capable of a feat?”

Sarah goes on tour in the USA. And he writes a letter to his mother in Sweden, asking for advice. He is waiting for an answer and here it is: “Son, I know your passion firsthand. She amazed me with her performance in our theater last year. If you need bohemia, you will get it. I know, in France, to a man who ruined his life from -for women, they treat with sympathy and regret, and the hero himself is proud of this. In your homeland, my son, he would be considered a fool. Take an example from the Swedes, Elf (that’s what the mother of her son called), the personality of the actors consists of all the roles they played on stage, and at the basis of this personality lies something amorphous, which can be given any form. It’s not for nothing that actors in the old days were not allowed to be buried in a cemetery. They have no soul, son!” He couldn't disobey his mother.

Nobel’s next crush appeared after he placed an ad in an Austrian newspaper: “A very rich, educated, middle-aged (41 years old) gentleman is looking for a mature, multilingual lady who could work as a secretary and run a household.” Alfred Nobel conducted business in different countries, but considered the place where he worked to be his home. He loved order and needed help. I understood: when the president of such a gigantic corporation chooses a secretary, he must be much more careful than when choosing a life partner.

Countess Bertha Kinski, daughter of an Austrian field marshal, answered him. Left destitute after her mother gambled away the family's wealth, she was forced to work in Vienna as a governess for the von Sutter family until her mistress showed her the door after learning of Bertha's affair with her son.

At a consultation with specialists in Paris, Alfred was warned about the development of angina pectoris, associated with insufficient oxygen supply to the heart muscle. He was advised to go on vacation. Nobel moved again to San Remo. There he tries to finish things. “Yes, I am still a ruler,” the same voice says in it, “I have a crown on my head.” But, damn it, she’s squeezing my head tighter and tighter. What is this?.. Old age, illness and complete loneliness?" He goes to the desk and writes down his last wish. And it flashes through his head: "I have acquired untold wealth. It’s time to give it to people, to descendants.” And he puts his sweeping, royal signature.

Nobel's charity

Alfred Nobel responds to insistent requests from publishers to write his biography with his characteristic sarcasm and cynicism: “Sir, don’t torment me. This is the lot of famous murderers and actors. But I don’t have enough time to work... But, by the way, you can publish. Here is my biography: “Nobel is a poor half-dead creature. Advantage: keeps nails clean and is not a burden to anyone. Disadvantages: no family, great patience, poor health, but good appetite. My only wish: not to be buried alive. The greatest sin: lack of love for wealth... Is this not enough for a mortal?

In recent years, Nobel worked with his personal secretary and chemist, the young Swede Ragnar Salman. Together with him, he received a patent for his latest invention - smokeless gunpowder ("ballistite"). The assistant gained such trust that Alfred called him nothing more than “the main executor of my desires.”

December 10, 1896 Alfred Nobel died from a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy.

The origins of Nobel's will with the wording of the provisions on awarding awards for achievements in various fields of human activity leave many ambiguities. The document in its final form represents one of the editions of his previous wills. His posthumous gift for awarding prizes in the field of literature and the field of science and technology logically follows from the interests of Nobel himself, who came into contact with the indicated aspects of human activity: physics, physiology, chemistry, literature. There is also reason to assume that the establishment of prizes for peacekeeping activities is connected with the desire of the inventor to recognize people who, like him, steadfastly resisted violence.

Alfred Nobel is the richest chemist in the history of mankind. Where did Alfred receive the education that revealed his talents? What connects the famous inventor with Russia? How did a millionaire without children and a wife manage his wealth? What goal did the scientist pursue when approving the Nobel Prize?

The founder of the Nobel Prize was born in Sweden in 1883. In addition to Alfred, there were seven more children in the family, but only four brothers lived to adulthood. When Alfred was nine years old, the Nobel family moved to Russia, where he grew up and became involved in the affairs of his father’s company.

The inventor's youth

Albert received his education at home, and at the age of 16 his father sent him on a journey that lasted two years. In France, the future scientist completed courses in chemistry and physics. Immanuel Nobel (Alfred's father) became rich in Russia thanks to the production of mines, which were in demand during the Crimean War. But after the war, the plant stopped making a profit, Nobel Sr. returned to Sweden. Young Alfred remained to run the business and began chemical experiments with his brother Emil. In 1864, during one experiment, a tragedy occurred; Emil and several other people died from an explosion. However, the research did not stop; Alfred continued to work in the laboratory.

Great invention

In his youth, the young scientist experienced heartfelt disappointment - his beloved, the daughter of a pharmacist, chose to marry a mathematician. Saddened, Alfred plunged headlong into business. In 1867, he made his famous discovery - he invented dynamite. The discovery brought him fame and fortune. Ill-wishers spread a rumor in the newspapers that the discovery was accidental: the flask broke, the contents mixed with the soil, and the result was dynamite. Nobel himself always disputed this version; he insisted that he purposefully selected a substance that would reduce the explosiveness of nitroglycerin.

The chemist organized a chemical laboratory in the middle of the lake, far from people, equipped with everything necessary. He managed to convince several investors to invest in dynamite production. In addition to the patent for the invention in Sweden itself, the scientist patented the rights to the production of dynamite in international organizations. In the course of further research, Nobel invented a number of explosives.

Nobel's personality

Alfred's interests were not limited only to chemistry and explosives. Nobel was well versed and worked successfully in the fields of optics, medicine, and biology. In total, 350 patents were registered in the name of Alfred Nobel, including a water meter, a refrigerator, a gas burner, and a barometer.

Based on even such a modest listing of his works, it becomes clear how talented Alfred Nobel was. In addition to science, the scientist was fond of fiction; his favorite writers were Turgenev, Balzac, Hugo and Maupassant. Nobel himself wrote, but only one of his plays, Nemesis, has survived to this day.

Nobel Prize

Contemporaries describe Nobel as a modest and even gloomy man, prone to loneliness. He did not smoke, did not drink, and did not gamble. His lifestyle can be called Spartan; the millionaire did not squander his capital, but used it wisely. Alfred Nobel was against violence and war, even his dynamite was initially used only for peaceful purposes - construction, tunneling. Nobel paid for many congresses dedicated to peace throughout the planet. The scientist did not like journalists for their importunity and even nicknamed them “bipedal bacilli.”

In his will, Nobel placed all his acquired wealth in a specialized fund, and ordered the income to be divided into five parts and awarded every year to the most talented chemist, physicist, physician, physiologist and writer. The scientist paid special attention to the point that states that the nationality of the candidate should not matter. In this way, Alfred Nobel tried to make a feasible contribution to maintaining peace throughout the planet.

Kaluga region, Borovsky district, Petrovo village

The “Dialogue of Cultures - United World” Foundation initiated a project to install the famous humanist on the territory of the Cultural and Educational Tourist Center “ETNOMIR”. The author of the sculpture, Alexei Leonov, depicted Alfred Nobel at a turning point in his life: sitting in a chair with a newspaper in which his obituary was mistakenly published. It was then that the inventor decided to direct the enormous fortune he had accumulated to achieve the highest goal - eternal peace and prosperity.

Today, every guest of ETNOMIR can see the monument: the monument is installed between the 6th pavilion of the Street of Peace “Caravanserai” and the 7th pavilion “Around the World”. In the future, the bronze Nobel will take pride of place on the pedestal of the “Norway” ethno-court. Sweden. Iceland". Come to the main ethnographic park-museum of Russia to learn the testimonies of one of the greatest teachers of mankind!

In 1874, the Italian Ascanio Sobrero managed to develop an oil with very explosive properties - nitroglycerin. But the oil was difficult to handle and would explode even if carelessly shaken too much, making it dangerous to transport and use. It was only when it was mixed with diatomaceous earth that the explosive became usable and in many ways changed the world, receiving the name “dynamite” from its inventor, Alfred Nobel.

Dynamite proved extremely useful for a variety of construction work, being used to build everything from roads and mines to railroads and ports. Dynamite contributed to worldwide economic development and became a major ingredient and product of Alfred Nobel's international industrial network.

But Nobel was not happy with the use of dynamite in the military field, and in 1895, a year before his death, he decided to bequeath his enormous fortune to a foundation that would award prizes in the fields of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature and work for the good of peace . These awards are known as Nobel Prizes.

Son of an Inventor

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm. His father's name was Immanuel Nobel, he was a builder and also engaged in invention, but with varying degrees of success. When Alfred was little, the family had such a hard time that they decided to move to St. Petersburg and build a new, better life there. Immanuel Nobel went first in 1837, and when money became better, he moved his family there - his wife Andrietta Nobel and sons Robert, Ludwig and Alfred.

Soon after all the Nobels settled in St. Petersburg, another, fourth, son was born in the family - Emil. In total, Immanuel and Andrietta Nobel had eight children, but four of them died in childhood. In St. Petersburg, Immanuel Nobel was also involved in the production of mines and steam engines, and he managed to achieve a fairly good position.

Robert, Ludwig and Alfred received a thorough interdisciplinary education: they studied classical literature and philosophy and, in addition to their native language, spoke four others fluently. The older brothers decided to focus on mechanics, while Alfred studied chemistry.

Alfred was especially interested in experimental chemistry. At the age of 17, he went abroad for two years on a study trip, during which he met famous chemists and took practical lessons from them. The Nobel brothers also worked in their father's factory, and if anything Alfred seems to have inherited his father's interest in carrying out daring and life-threatening experiments.

Lethal experiments with nitroglycerin

So, nitroglycerin was invented - a mixture of sulfuric acid, nitric acid and glycerin, and although it was still new and undeveloped, Messrs. Nobel was also very familiar with it. However, no one really knew how to use this substance. It was clear that if you put a small amount of nitroglycerin on a workbench and hit it with a hammer, it would explode, or at least the part of it that was hit by the hammer would explode. The problem is that the nitroglycerin explosion was difficult to completely control.

In 1858, the factory of Alfred Nobel's father went bankrupt. Father and mother moved back to Sweden with their youngest son Emil, and Robert Nobel went to Finland. Ludwig Nobel founded his own mechanical workshop, where Alfred Nobel apparently also helped - and at the same time carried out various experiments with nitroglycerin.

The work gained momentum when Alfred Nobel moved to Stockholm. He received his first Swedish patent for a method of producing “Nobel's explosive oil,” as he called nitroglycerin. Together with his father and brother Emil, he began producing the substance on an industrial scale in Heleneborg.

Alfred and Immanuel Nobel wanted to create a safe explosive, but the production process was not at all safe. For the first time, experiments had truly tragic consequences: in 1864, the laboratory blew up, and several people, including Emil Nobel, died. The Nobels simply did not realize how dangerous a substance they were dealing with and how risky it was to conduct experiments in the city.

Explosion accidents also occurred outside Sweden, and many countries introduced legislation prohibiting the use and transport of Nobel's explosive oil. Stockholm authorities have, for obvious reasons, banned the production of nitroglycerin in the city. Tens of thousands of people actually laid their lives on the experiments that were carried out in Nobel's factories, many died because the product his company supplied was so dangerous.

“The brain is a generator of impressions of a very unstable nature, and anyone who has the impression that he is right only believes that he is right,” noted Alfred Nobel in one of his notebooks.

Nitroglycerin + diatomaceous earth = true

But despite all this, Alfred Nobel found an effective way to sell his product, and although the public feared the substance, nitroglycerin was soon being used to blow up everything from railway tunnels to mines. So only six weeks after the Heleneborg explosion, Alfred Nobel founded Nitroglycerin AB, the world's first nitroglycerin factory, and bought a plot of land with a house from Winterviken to continue his activities there.

In 1963, Alfred Nobel also received a patent for a detonator - a small capsule with a fuse that ignites other explosives, which was needed to make nitroglycerin explode via a cord. This became part of Nobel's greatest discovery, which was already very close.

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The name dynamite comes from the Greek “dynamis”, which means “strength”: this idea probably appeared in connection with the then name of the electric motor - dynamo.

Dynamite made Alfred Nobel a world famous inventor. He received a patent for it in 1867, but the experiment was not yet over.

Nobel wanted to make dynamite even more powerful and give it water resistance, which was still missing. He mixed nitroglycerin with a small amount of pyroxylin and the result was explosive gelatin that could be used under water. 10 years after the invention of dynamite, he received a patent for his third great invention - ballistite, or Nobel gunpowder, which was a mixture of equal parts of nitroglycerin and pyroxylin. The advantage of ballistite was its low smoke quality: when it exploded, very little smoke was produced.

While working in the laboratory, Alfred Nobel also developed business skills. He traveled to different countries and demonstrated his explosives and how to use them. Dynamite, for example, was used on a large scale in the construction of the world's third largest tunnel, the St. Gotthard Tunnel, passing through the Alps in Switzerland.

Lonely director in poor health

Given this state of affairs, Nobel moved his headquarters to Paris and bought a large villa on what was then Avenue de Malakoff (today called Avenue Poincaré). He created one of the first multinational enterprises in Europe with more than 20 subsidiaries and managed this business empire himself.

Alfred Nobel traveled around the world - to Scotland, Vienna and Stockholm - and wrote thousands of business letters. Dynamite was sold especially successfully in the USA, and factories were built in Great Britain, Switzerland and Italy. Even in Asia, one company appeared. Nobel seemed to enjoy making a lot of money. Despite this, he was not greedy and showed generosity towards those around him.

But Nobel’s health was poor: he regularly had angina attacks. It must have been difficult to manage the grueling administrative affairs of an entire international network of businesses on his own, and despite his efforts to maintain a healthy, tobacco- and alcohol-free lifestyle, Alfred Nobel often felt tired and ill.

“Alfred Nobel made a pleasant impression... Slightly below average height, with a dark beard, not beautiful, but not ugly facial features, which were enlivened only by the soft gaze of his blue eyes, and his voice sounded either melancholic or mocking.” — his friend Bertha von Suttner said about Alfred Nobel.

In 1889, Alfred Nobel moved to San Remo, where he set up a new laboratory. Italy bought a license to produce his low-smoke gunpowder, and the local climate was favorable for his health, which improved slightly. He devoted all his time to invention and literature, there was a large library in his house, and his collection of fiction, for example, was preserved in the Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Alfred Nobel died in 1896 in his villa in San Remo. He was 63 years old. When Nobel's heirs went to San Remo to receive their share of the inheritance, they encountered a real surprise.

An astonishing testament

When Nobel's valid will was read, the audience was amazed. The will stated that Nobel's capital, which at the time of his death amounted to a dizzying 35 million Swedish kronor, would form the basis of a fund that would spend the proceeds of this amount annually on bonuses to people who had brought the "greatest benefit" to humanity during the year. The nationality of the nominee and his gender should not have mattered.

The profit was to be divided into five equal parts, each of which would become a prize in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, as well as literature. The fifth prize was to go to the one who most contributed to the establishment of fraternal relations between people or the reduction of armies, in other words, fought for peace. Prizes for physics and chemistry were to be distributed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, for physiology or medicine by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the literary prize by the Swedish Academy, and the Peace Prize by a five-member commission elected by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament.

Multimedia

However, the authenticity of the will was called into question, and those organizations that were tasked with distributing the bonuses were initially tormented by doubts. The Swedish king was also critical of the awards, especially the fact that they were supposed to be international. After legal disputes and intense protests from Nobel's relatives, a Nobel Committee was created to look after Nobel's condition and organize the distribution of prizes.

An idealist of sorts

Alfred Nobel's life was unusual in many ways. After moving from St. Petersburg, he had to fight for his inventions and his enterprise for ten years. In his old age, already a successful businessman, Alfred Nobel had more than 350 patents. But he lived a secluded life and rarely participated in public events.

In his youth, he faced difficulties due to the fact that he came up with ideas that he could not implement due to lack of resources. Perhaps that is why he decided to give away his millions to unknown people who made significant discoveries - as a reward to unsettled, diligent and full of ideas individuals from any part of the world. Moreover, he himself said that the inherited condition is a misfortune that only contributes to the apathy of the human race.

Nobel considered establishing a prize many times, and he was very interested in working for the benefit of peace. Among other things, he had the idea of ​​creating a European peace tribunal. It is clear that he wanted to bequeath his fortune to causes that could support his own passions in life: science, literature, and work for the good of the world.

The moral conflict that the inventor who created so many destructive weapons was an ardent supporter of peace, he himself apparently did not notice.

Alfred Nobel, who dedicated his life to creating increasingly powerful explosives used to cause death and destruction in war, also founded an important peace prize, and this created a contradictory impression. Apparently, Nobel perceived himself primarily as a scientist and believed that the application of inventions was no longer his business. As the newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote after his death, he believed that he could make war impossible simply by making the weapons terrible enough.

Piecing together Alfred Nobel's entire fortune has proven to be a massive undertaking. Nobel appointed his employee Ragnar Sohlman as executor of the will, and only three and a half years after Nobel's death the king was able to approve the charter and rules of the Nobel Committee. Due to the international nature of the prize, as well as the size of the prize money, it was treated with great respect from the very beginning. The first five Nobel Prizes were awarded on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, December 10, 1901.

Alfred Nobel never married, but he had a long affair with a young Austrian, Sofie Hess, who was 20 years old when they met. He was clearly in love with Sophie Hess and even bought her an apartment in Paris, but she never seemed to live up to his requirements for a potential wife, and when she finally found another life partner, their relationship ended in nothing.

“I am not an expert on people, I can only state facts,” wrote Alfred Nobel in a letter to Sophie Hess.

Nobel was a very creative person; many ideas were constantly spinning in his head. “If 300 ideas come to my mind in a year, and at least one of them is applicable, I am already satisfied,” Alfred Nobel once wrote. He wrote down aphorisms and ideas for inventions in small notebooks, and from them one can get an idea of ​​the worldview of the inventor, who often walked around lost in thought:

"Railway protection: an explosive charge for a locomotive to destroy substances placed on the rails."

“A cartridge without a case. Gunpowder ignited by a small glass tube which is broken.”

“A gun with water sprayed into the muzzle to avoid smoke and recoil.”

"Soft glass"

"Production of aluminum."

And: “When we talk about understanding and reason, we thereby mean perception, which in our time is considered the norm for most educated people.”

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Everyone knows that the most prestigious award a scientist can receive for his work is the Nobel Prize.


Every year in Sweden, the Nobel Committee reviews applications from the most outstanding scientists of our time and decides who this year deserves a prize in various fields of science. The fund from which the prizes are paid was created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. This scientist received huge sums of money for his developments, and bequeathed almost all of his earnings to the foundation named after him. But what did Alfred Nobel invent that formed the basis for the Nobel Prizes?

Talented self-taught

Paradoxically, Alfred Nobel, the author of more than 350 inventions, had no education at all except at home. However, this was not uncommon in those days when the content of school education was entirely dependent on the owners of the educational institution. Alfred's father, Emmanuel Nobel, was a wealthy and very educated man, a successful architect and mechanic.

Since 1842, the Nobel family moved from Stockholm to St. Petersburg, where Emmanuel developed military equipment for the Russian army and even opened several factories where it was produced. However, over time, things did not go so well, the factories went bankrupt, and the family returned to Sweden.

Invention of dynamite

Since 1859, Alfred Nobel became interested in the technology of making explosives. At that time, the most powerful of them was nitroglycerin, but its use was extremely dangerous: the substance exploded at the slightest shock or impact. After many experiments, Nobel invented an explosive composition called dynamite - a mixture of nitroglycerin with an inert substance that reduced the danger of its use.

Dynamite very quickly became in demand in mining, for large-scale excavation work and in a number of other industries. Its production brought significant wealth to the Nobel family.

Other Nobel inventions

During his long and fruitful life, Alfred Nobel became the owner of 355 patents for inventions, and not all of them related to explosives. The most famous of his works were:

- a series of ten detonator caps, one of which is used in explosives to this day under the name “detonator No. 8”;

- “explosive jelly” - a gelatinous mixture of nitroglycerin with collodion, superior to dynamite in explosive power, which today is known as an intermediate raw material for the manufacture of safer explosives;


- ballistite is a smokeless powder based on nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, used today in mortar and gun shells, as well as as rocket fuel;

— an oil pipeline as a way to transport crude oil from the field to processing, which reduces the cost of oil production by 7 times;

— improved gas burner for lighting and heating;

- new design of water meter and;

— refrigeration unit for domestic and industrial use;

— a new, cheaper and safer method for producing sulfuric acid;

- a bicycle with rubber tires;

- improved steam boiler.

The inventions of Nobel and his brothers brought considerable income to the family, making the Nobels very wealthy people. But their fortunes were honestly earned by their own intelligence, talent and enterprise.

Alfred Nobel's charity

Thanks to his inventions, Nobel became the owner of several successful businesses. They not only produced technical products that were advanced at the time, but also maintained an order that was very different for the better from the usual factory environment. Nobel created comfortable living conditions for his workers - he built houses and free hospitals for them, schools for their children, and introduced free transportation for workers to and from the factory.

Despite the fact that many of his inventions had a military purpose, Nobel was a staunch pacifist, so he spared no expense in promoting the peaceful coexistence of states. He donated a lot of money for holding international peace congresses and conferences in defense of peace.

At the end of his life, Nobel drew up his famous will, according to which the bulk of his fortune after the death of the inventor went to the foundation that was later named after him. The capital left by Nobel was invested in securities, the income from which for more than a hundred years has been annually distributed among those who, in the general opinion, have brought the greatest benefit to humanity:

— in physics;

— in chemistry;

- in medicine or physiology;

- in literature;

- in promoting peace and oppression, uniting the peoples of the planet.


A prerequisite for awarding the prize is the exclusively peaceful nature of the discovery or development. The Nobel Prizes are the most honorable award for scientists around the world, a sign of their highest achievements in the scientific field.

Debts for unfulfilled inventions, the persistence of creditors and the fire that destroyed the house of the Swede Emmanuel Nobel forced his family to leave their native Stockholm. Nobels found refuge in St. Petersburg in 1837. The city on the Neva welcomed the family cordially, offering it a new life and new prospects.

In the Russian capital, the Nobels established the production of sea mines and lathes, and when they finally got back on their feet, they decided to send their son Alfred to study abroad. The 16-year-old boy traveled almost all of Europe until he ended up in Paris. There he met the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, the man who discovered nitroglycerin.

Alfred was warned: nitroglycerin is a dangerous substance and can explode at any moment. But the warnings seemed to only spur the young man on. He wanted to learn how to control explosive energy and find useful uses for it. Moreover, the Crimean War (1853-1856), which enriched the Nobel family, had ended by that time.

Enterprises that took on military orders from the state suffered losses, and Alfred's relatives risked being out of work again. The young scientist's filial duty and ambition motivated him to move forward, and in 1863 his labors were rewarded. Alfred invented the mercury fulminate detonator. Contemporaries considered Nobel's achievement to be the greatest since the discovery of gunpowder, but this was only the beginning of his journey.

According to Vladimir Belin, a professor at the Mining Institute of NUST MISIS and President of the National Organization of Explosive Engineers, “Nobel’s detonator is still functionally and in its layout not very different from the modern one.”

• Alfred Nobel
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“With gunpowder charges, the person who lights them is in close proximity. With the help of a detonator, he can be beyond the limits of possible damage, Belin noted in an interview with RT. — We must also not forget that Alfred Nobel was a businessman. It delayed the development of other industrial explosives (HE) for 20 years. Nobel bought a patent for ammonium nitrate explosives, which were not as effective as dynamite, but less dangerous. But in any case, all bombers in the world honor the memory of Nobel and consider him the founder of modern explosives.”

After some time, the young scientist left St. Petersburg and returned to his native Sweden, where he continued experiments with nitroglycerin and founded a workshop that changed the family’s life forever.

On September 3, 1864, an explosion occurred in the Nobel workshop. Alfred knew about the dangers of nitroglycerin, he had witnessed explosions and accidents more than once, but never before had unsuccessful experiences brought him so much pain. One of the victims was his 20-year-old brother Emil. The news of his son's death shocked Emmanuel Nobel; he suffered a stroke and remained bedridden forever. Albert also grieved for a long time, but the pain of loss did not break him, and he continued his research.

By chance

In a short time, Nobel managed to find investors who agreed to sponsor his research. Nitroglycerin factories began to appear in different cities. But every now and then there were explosions that cost workers their lives. Even more often, vehicles carrying bottles of chemical substances took off into the air. Stories grew in detail, rumors appeared that created the ground for speculation and panic. Ultimately, Alfred's intervention was required. Having traced all stages of nitroglycerin production, he developed a list of rules that helped secure the process of obtaining the substance and its transportation.

In its liquid state, nitroglycerin was still extremely dangerous. Shaking, improper storage or transportation could result in an explosion at any time. Considering the specifics of the substance, Nobel resorted to a trick: he began adding methyl alcohol to it, due to which nitroglycerin ceased to be explosive. But where one door opened, another closed. Restoring nitroglycerin's explosive power was almost as difficult and dangerous. The process of distilling alcohol from nitroglycerin could cause an explosion. Trying to make the substance solid, Nobel came to a revolutionary solution that led to the creation of dynamite.

Paper, brick dust, cement, chalk, even sawdust - mixing nitroglycerin with these materials did not give the desired results. The solution to the problem was diatomaceous earth, or, as it is also called, “mountain flour.” It is a rock similar to loose limestone that can be found at the bottom of bodies of water. Light, pliable, accessible material became the answer to all of Alfred’s questions.

According to one of the legends, which gained popularity during Nobel’s lifetime, the idea of ​​using diatomaceous earth came to him completely by accident. During transportation of nitroglycerin, one of the bottles cracked, and its contents spilled onto the packaging made of kieselguhr cardboard. Nobel tested the resulting mixture for explosiveness. All tests were passed successfully: the mixture turned out to be safer than gunpowder and five times more powerful than it, which is why it got its name - dynamite (from the ancient Greek “power”). The name contributed to the commercial success of the invention: it was possible, firstly, to avoid mention of nitroglycerin, which scared the whole world, and secondly, to draw attention to the enormous power of the explosive new product.

On the wave of success

The rate of dynamite production increased steadily, and over the next eight years Alfred opened 17 factories. Nobel's explosives helped complete the 15-kilometer Gotthard Tunnel in the Alps and the Corinth Canal in Greece. Dynamite was also used in the construction of over 300 bridges and 80 tunnels. But soon the founder of the business empire began to have competitors, which forced Nobel to think about modernizing explosives.

• Gotthard Tunnel in the Alps
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Dynamite was weaker than pure nitroglycerin, it was difficult to use under water, and when stored for a long time, it lost its properties. Then Alfred came up with a new idea - according to the legend, again completely by accident. While conducting experiments, he cut his finger on the glass of a broken flask. The wound was treated with collodion - a thick sticky solution that, when dried, forms a thin film. Nobel suggested that this substance would mix well with nitroglycerin. And he turned out to be right. The next day, he built a new explosive - “explosive jelly”, which was later called the most perfect dynamite.

Transience of eras

In the 19th century, Alfred Nobel's invention revolutionized the mining industry. According to Belin, extracting minerals using gunpowder charges was problematic and, most importantly, unsafe. Dynamite, which replaced gunpowder, was used for decades. But at some point it began to become outdated and was replaced by more advanced technologies.

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“In the Russian Federation, dynamite is not used due to the dangers of storage, transportation and use. Today the world works on ammonium nitrate explosives and so-called emulsion explosives, which have guaranteed and regulated explosive characteristics. With their help, you can make, for example, so that the charge is dangerous for a week. After a certain period of time, its combat properties disappear, Belin said, and it is not an explosive substance that is transported, but an emulsion matrix. Explosive characteristics are acquired after loading into boreholes, chambers, boreholes, etc.”

Dynamite was sometimes used in warfare, but reluctantly and with caution. This is due to the sensitivity of the explosive: it could easily explode if stored improperly, shot through by a bullet or in an artillery shell.

The editor-in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, reserve colonel Viktor Murakhovsky, noted in a conversation with RT that dynamite was practically not used as ammunition.

“An element such as TNT and explosives based on it appeared quite quickly. But dynamite was not very convenient for military purposes,” Murakhovsky said. — During the war, it was used only at the stages of engineering work: during the construction of fortifications or, conversely, clearing territories. It is known as an industrial explosive, not a military explosive."

In some countries, dynamite is still produced in limited quantities to this day. It is produced, for example, in Finland and the USA. There is only one company involved in production in the United States. Dynamite typically comes in various sized "cartridges" filled with a plastic or powdered explosive. Dynamite is still used in mining or demolition of buildings.