ALFRED NOBEL

Marcela Saenz
Leto High School
Period 3 – Chemestry
Mrs. Junejo

Alfred Nobel
Chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer; introducing to the man an essential element, Alfred Nobel, contributes the science when he invented the dynamite and after his dead he leaves us the most recognized prizes in the world, Nobel Prizes.
Life and Career
Being the fourth of eight children in the Nobel family, Alfred Nobel and three brothers reached adulthood. Alfred was prone to illness as a child, but he enjoyed a close relationship with his mother (Caroline Nobel) and displayed a lively intellectual curiosity from an early age. He was interested in explosives, and he learned the fundamentals of engineering from his father, Immanuel Nobel. Following various business failures, the Nobel family moved to Saint Petersburg in 1837 and fate begins to bloom when Immanuel grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. Alfred’s newly prosperous parents were now able to send him to private tutors, and he proved to be an eager pupil. He was a competent chemist by age 16 and was fluent in English, French, German, and Russian, as well as Swedish.
After Alfred Nobel’s studies in Paris and working the United States he returned to Sweden, when his brother, Ludvig Nobel, was in charge of the family factory, who produced armaments for the Crimean War, thanks to him, the factory greatly improved. In Sweden, Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerine but it was so unstable that it could not be handled with any degree of safety. Nevertheless, Nobel in 1862 built a small factory to manufacture nitroglycerin, and at the same time he undertook research in the hope of finding a safe way to control the explosive’s detonation. Nobel invented a detonator in 1863; and, in 1865, he designed the blasting cap. The invention of the blasting cap inaugurated the modern use of high explosives.
Nitroglycerin itself, however, remained difficult to transport and extremely dangerous to handle. So dangerous, in fact, that Nobel’s nitroglycerin factory blew up in 1864, killing his younger brother Emil and several other people. In 1866 A violent explosion destroys the Krümmel plant. Experimenting on a raft anchored on the river Elbe, Alfred Nobel tries to make nitroglycerin safer to handle. Undaunted by this tragic accidents, Nobel built several factories to manufacture nitroglycerin for use in concert with his blasting caps.
Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally. In 1875 Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 patented ballistite, a forerunner of cordite.

Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert exploited oilfields along the Caspian Sea and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life Nobel issued 350 patents internationally and by his death had established 90 armaments factories, despite his belief in pacifism.

By 1895 Nobel had developed angina pectoris, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy, in 1896. At his death his worldwide business empire consisted of more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition. The opening of his will, which he had drawn up in Paris on November 27, 1895, and had deposited in a bank in Stockholm, contained a great surprise for his family, friends, and the general public. He had always been generous in humanitarian and scientific philanthropies, and he left the bulk of his fortune in trust to establish what came to be the most highly regarded of international awards, the Nobel Prizes.

Personal Life
Alfred Nobel remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. Though Nobel remained unmarried, his biographers note that he had at least three loves. But in fact Alfred Nobel, met his true love in France when an ad in the newspaper looking for a mature, cultured and tasteful life house wife. It is known as the Austrian Berthe Countess Kinsky. Distinguished, cultured, beautiful, simply wowed the "old gentleman" proposed marriage soon. But his proposal was rejected. She was, perhaps, his unique, eternal love.

Bibliography * Biografia de Alfred Nobel www.biografiasyvida.com * Alfred Bernhard Nobel (Swedish Inventor) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416842/Alfred-Bernhard-Nobel * The Dark Side of the Nobel Prizes http://www.livescience.com/40188-dark-history-alfred-nobel-prizes.html * Alfred Nobel Timeline http://www.nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/biographical/timeline/ * Alfred Nobel "The man behind the Awards" http://html.rincondelvago.com/alfred-nobel.html * Alfred Nobel Biography http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-nobel-9424195