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Alfred Nobel and the invention of dynamite
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Alfred Bernhard Nobel is based known for the prize which is named after him and he was able to do this due to the success of his business ventures. Amongst many other things, he held 355 patents, he invented dynamite and it was largely because of this that he made his fortune.
Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the third son of the Swedish engineer and industrialist Immanuel Nobel . He had two older brothers, Robert (1829-1896) and Ludvig (1831-1888), and a younger brother Emil Oskar Nobel who was born in 1843.
In 1842, aged eight, he went to Saint Petersburg , where his father, with the help of the Norwegian government , had founded a number of iron and steel works, which amongst other clients, supplied the Russian army . Part of his family stayed in Russia and one of his nephews was the Swedish-Russian oil magnate Emanuel Nobel (1859–1932), who built the first diesel powered ship, the Vandal .
Thanks to the wealth of his father, Alfred enjoyed first-class training from private tutors. By the age of 17 he already spoke Swedish, Russian, German, English and French. He was also able to travel to various countries with his father.
Nitroglycerin was invented in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero. Sobrero initially wanted to keep his invention a secret as he considered it too dangerous for practical use. However he shared his secret with the Nobel father and son when he met them in Paris in 1850.
The younger Nobel showed great interest in the invention of nitroglycerine and believed that it would make a useful explosive. Between 1860 and 1864 he experimented with explosives in the coal mining industry in the Ruhr area at the Dorstfeld colliery in Dortmund. In 1863 he invented a detonator which would blow up nitroglycerine with greater certainty.
Experiments with explosives are of course very dangerous. The inventor of nitroglycerine, Ascanio Sobrero had been badly injured in an accident. On 3 September 1864 Alfred Nobel’s younger brother, was killed alongside four other people in an explosion. Emil Oskar Nobel was only 19. From then on, Alfred Nobel only carried out experiments in special factories in Sweden and Germany, nonetheless more accidents occurred.
A chance leak during transport in 1866 led to the discovery of dynamite. Allegedly, some nitroglycerin dripped onto the loading area of a transport carriage, the floor of which had been packed with diatomaceous {diet oh me shus} earth. Diatomaceous earth is earth with a high level of fossilized remains of a type of algae. Nobel patented the process, which was optimized in a mixing ratio of 3: 1, the product was named dynamite. Nobel always credited Ascanio Sobrero as being the inventor of nitroglycerine and paid an annual fee to the Italian for its use, however the latter always felt that he had been cheated given the huge sums that Nobel earned from it.
Owing to the demand for dynamite in the mining business, Nobel became very rich. He owned over 90 dynamite factories in various countries and held the patent for the explosive meaning that no-one else could copy it although attempts were done so by replacing diatomaceous earth with other products.
Nobel continued to research with explosives. In 1875 he developed gelignite, which is easily moldable, cheap to produce, burns slowly and safe to handle without protection, as long as it is not near anything capable of detonating it.
In 1887 he patented ballistite, which is a smokeless propellant made from nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. There is a clear military advantage of not giving away one’s position by the smoke from weapons and the Italian government immediately replaced its weapons with this which led to Nobel being forced to leave France. In 1891 he went to live in San Remo where he had owned a villa for 21 years and he died there on 10 December 1896 of a cerebral haemorrhage.
The Nobel family fortune was to a large extent thanks to its use in weapons. To a large extent, I think it would be fair to say that dynamite and gelignite largely have civilian applicationsexplosive gelatine, were, contrary to popular belief, unsuitable for waging war. The low-smoke ballistite powder was an exception. It revolutionized all firing technology, from pistols to cannons.
When Nobel's brother Ludvig died in 1888, a French newspaper got him mixed up with his brother Alfred Nobel and ran an obituary headed: Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"). Nobel's wealth was explained by the fact that he had found the means to "kill more people faster than ever before". Legend has it that it was moment that Alfred Nobel sought to think of how posterity would see him. He was a pacifist, although this did not stop him buying the Swedish armaments company Bofors in 1894.
Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the third son of the Swedish engineer and industrialist Immanuel Nobel . He had two older brothers, Robert (1829-1896) and Ludvig (1831-1888), and a younger brother Emil Oskar Nobel who was born in 1843.
In 1842, aged eight, he went to Saint Petersburg , where his father, with the help of the Norwegian government , had founded a number of iron and steel works, which amongst other clients, supplied the Russian army . Part of his family stayed in Russia and one of his nephews was the Swedish-Russian oil magnate Emanuel Nobel (1859–1932), who built the first diesel powered ship, the Vandal .
Thanks to the wealth of his father, Alfred enjoyed first-class training from private tutors. By the age of 17 he already spoke Swedish, Russian, German, English and French. He was also able to travel to various countries with his father.
Nitroglycerin was invented in 1847 by Ascanio Sobrero. Sobrero initially wanted to keep his invention a secret as he considered it too dangerous for practical use. However he shared his secret with the Nobel father and son when he met them in Paris in 1850.
The younger Nobel showed great interest in the invention of nitroglycerine and believed that it would make a useful explosive. Between 1860 and 1864 he experimented with explosives in the coal mining industry in the Ruhr area at the Dorstfeld colliery in Dortmund. In 1863 he invented a detonator which would blow up nitroglycerine with greater certainty.
Experiments with explosives are of course very dangerous. The inventor of nitroglycerine, Ascanio Sobrero had been badly injured in an accident. On 3 September 1864 Alfred Nobel’s younger brother, was killed alongside four other people in an explosion. Emil Oskar Nobel was only 19. From then on, Alfred Nobel only carried out experiments in special factories in Sweden and Germany, nonetheless more accidents occurred.
A chance leak during transport in 1866 led to the discovery of dynamite. Allegedly, some nitroglycerin dripped onto the loading area of a transport carriage, the floor of which had been packed with diatomaceous {diet oh me shus} earth. Diatomaceous earth is earth with a high level of fossilized remains of a type of algae. Nobel patented the process, which was optimized in a mixing ratio of 3: 1, the product was named dynamite. Nobel always credited Ascanio Sobrero as being the inventor of nitroglycerine and paid an annual fee to the Italian for its use, however the latter always felt that he had been cheated given the huge sums that Nobel earned from it.
Owing to the demand for dynamite in the mining business, Nobel became very rich. He owned over 90 dynamite factories in various countries and held the patent for the explosive meaning that no-one else could copy it although attempts were done so by replacing diatomaceous earth with other products.
Nobel continued to research with explosives. In 1875 he developed gelignite, which is easily moldable, cheap to produce, burns slowly and safe to handle without protection, as long as it is not near anything capable of detonating it.
In 1887 he patented ballistite, which is a smokeless propellant made from nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. There is a clear military advantage of not giving away one’s position by the smoke from weapons and the Italian government immediately replaced its weapons with this which led to Nobel being forced to leave France. In 1891 he went to live in San Remo where he had owned a villa for 21 years and he died there on 10 December 1896 of a cerebral haemorrhage.
The Nobel family fortune was to a large extent thanks to its use in weapons. To a large extent, I think it would be fair to say that dynamite and gelignite largely have civilian applicationsexplosive gelatine, were, contrary to popular belief, unsuitable for waging war. The low-smoke ballistite powder was an exception. It revolutionized all firing technology, from pistols to cannons.
When Nobel's brother Ludvig died in 1888, a French newspaper got him mixed up with his brother Alfred Nobel and ran an obituary headed: Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead"). Nobel's wealth was explained by the fact that he had found the means to "kill more people faster than ever before". Legend has it that it was moment that Alfred Nobel sought to think of how posterity would see him. He was a pacifist, although this did not stop him buying the Swedish armaments company Bofors in 1894.
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