Nobel. Michael Worek

      Introduction

      Since 1901, the first year the award was given, until the present day, nearly 800 individuals and organizations have been recognized with the Nobel Prize. This group includes some of the greatest scientists, writers, economists and peacemakers in the world.

      The five original Nobel awards were expanded in 1968 to include the Economic Sciences (normally known as the Nobel Prize in Economics). Prizes are awarded every December 10th to coincide with the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. Often controversial — as was Alfred Nobel himself — and at other times a nearly unanimous choice, the winners chosen by the Norwegian Nobel Committee (Peace), the Swedish Academy (Literature), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Physics, Chemistry and Economics) and the Karolinska Institute (Physiology or Medicine) don’t make history, but they do help write it.

      On the October 21, 1833, Alfred Bernhard was born in Stockholm, Sweden, third son of Immanuel and Andriette Nobel. Although in the coming years the young Alfred was pampered by his older brothers, the instability of the family’s financial situation was always apparent, and a threat of prison hung over Immanuel Nobel because of his debts. In 1837 Immanuel Nobel moved to Finland and then to the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, where he was finally able to rebuild his capital and the family’s honor.

      Alfred Nobel’s father found his son had a melancholic, idealistic side, and he ordered him at just 17 to embark on an extensive educational journey to expand his horizons and increase his interest in business. He also intended to expose his son to developments in the field of engineering, and explosives in particular. Alfred certainly benefited from studying abroad, meeting the brightest scientific minds of his day. In Paris he spent time with the inventor of nitroglycerin, the Italian Ascanio Sobrero, and in the United States he received lessons from the Swedish engineer John Ericsson.

      In 1852 his father called him home to become more involved in the family business, which was booming at the time because of orders from the Russian military. Immanuel Nobel had first come into contact with the world of explosives through civil construction and believed that his future in Russia lay in this rapidly changing field. His inventions include deadly land and sea mines, and he was responsible for the most important Russian armaments factory during the Crimean War. The end of this conflict, however, brought another wave of difficulties to Immanuel and, in 1863, facing bankruptcy once again, he left his elder sons, Robert and Ludvig, to run the Russian businesses and returned with his wife and two younger sons, Alfred and Emil, to Stockholm.

      While the family industries experienced a boom during the Crimean War, Alfred had devoted himself to studying explosives, particularly nitroglycerin. This compound was as dangerous as it was powerful, since its explosion could be set off by shock or heat. Nobel knew that if he could somehow “tame” nitroglycerin, it would become an unbeatable commercial product.

      One of the first experiments, performed in 1864, went horribly wrong and several people died in the explosion, including the young Emil Nobel. The Swedish authorities put an immediate stop to any new experiments within Stockholm, but neither this, nor the loss of his brother, could stop Alfred Nobel. He moved his research center to the banks of Lake Malaren and went back to producing nitroglycerin, experimenting with different types of additives as a way of taming it. He finally achieved his goal in 1866 by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr, thus producing a malleable and safe paste. Months later, on September 19, 1867, Alfred Nobel registered a patent for the new explosive, which he named “dynamite.”

      Nobel’s first factories were in Krümmel, Germany, and very remote, allowing him to experiment without risk to the local population. Between 1865 and 1873

Скачать книгу