Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel Alfred Nobel was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (18011872) and Andriette Ahlsell Nobel (1805-1889). He was born in Stockholm on 21 October 1833, he went with his family to Saint Petersburg in 1842. Alfred received 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 studied chemistry with Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich Zinin. When Alfred was 18, he went to the United States to study chemistry for four years and worked for a short period under John Ericsson. In 1863, Alfred, returning to Sweden with his father after the bankruptcy of their family business, concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive. He devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine. A big explosion occurred on the 3rd September 1864 at their factory in Heleneborg in Stockholm, killing five people, among them Alfred's younger brother Emil. In the 1870s and 1880s, Nobel built up a network of factories all over Europe to manufacture explosives. That business made him rich. Although he worked for the majority of his life developing explosives, Nobel was essentially a pacifist. When, in his later years he drew up a will, he stated that he wished the majority of his nine million dollar fortune to be used to fund awards in different fields of study (Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Physiology and Medicine, Peace). He stated that the awards should be given to ‘those who have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind’. He never got married, though his biographers note that he had at least three loves. Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893. Alfred Nobel died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896. He was buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm. ANSWER QUESTIONS 1. What type of education did he receive? What were his main interests during schooldays? 2. Why did he come back to Sweden with his father in 1863? 3. How did his youngest brother die? 4. Did he like explosive and war? 5. When did he get married? 6. When and where did he die? 7. What did he do with his fortune?