43 Facts About Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes.

Alfred Nobel made several other important contributions to science, holding 355 patents during his life.

Alfred Nobel embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning the company Bofors, which was an iron and steel producer that he had developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments.

Alfred Nobel's most famous invention, dynamite, was an explosive using nitroglycerin that was patented in 1867.

Alfred Nobel further invented gelignite in 1875 and ballistite in 1887.

Alfred Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his will, would be responsible for choosing the Alfred Nobel laureates in physics and in chemistry.

Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 21 October 1833.

Alfred Nobel was the third son of Immanuel Nobel, an inventor and engineer, and Andriette Nobel.

Alfred Nobel's father was an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks.

Alfred Nobel encouraged and taught Nobel from a young age.

Alfred Nobel invented the veneer lathe, which made possible the production of modern plywood, and started work on the naval mine.

For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Alfred Nobel attended the Jacobs Apologistic School in Stockholm, his only schooling; he never attended university.

Alfred Nobel gained proficiency in Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian.

Alfred Nobel developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English.

Alfred Nobel's Nemesis is a prose tragedy in four acts about the Italian noblewoman Beatrice Cenci.

Alfred Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on "ways to prepare gunpowder".

In 1859, Alfred Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Alfred Nobel, who greatly improved the business.

Alfred Nobel invented a detonator in 1863, and in 1865 designed the blasting cap.

Alfred Nobel was then deprived of his license to produce explosives.

Fazed by the accident, Alfred Nobel founded the company Nitroglycerin AB in Vinterviken so that he could continue to work in a more isolated area.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin.

In 1875, Alfred Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887, patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.

Alfred 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 Alfred Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.

Alfred Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions.

Alfred Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as "dynamite".

Alfred Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England.

Alfred Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite.

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Alfred Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality.

Alfred Nobel had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology.

Alfred Nobel was Lutheran and, during his years living in Paris, he regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad led by pastor Nathan Soderblom who received the Alfred Nobel Peace Prize in 1930.

Alfred Nobel was an agnostic in youth and became an atheist later in life, though he still donated generously to the Church.

Alfred Nobel remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression.

Alfred Nobel never married, although his biographers note that he had at least three loves.

Alfred Nobel was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize "for her sincere peace activities".

Alfred Nobel's longest-lasting romance was an 18-year relationship with Sofija Hess from Celje whom he met in 1876 in Baden bei Wien, where she worked as an employee in a flower shop that catered to wealthy clientele.

At the time that they met, Alfred Nobel was 43 years old while Hess was 26.

Hess was a Jewish Christian and the letters include remarks by Alfred Nobel characterized as antisemitism.

Alfred Nobel displayed characteristics of chauvinism in the letters writing to Hess: "You neither work, nor write, nor read, nor think" and guilted her, writing "I have for years now sacrificed out of purely noble motives my time, my duties, my intellectual life, my reputation".

Alfred Nobel traveled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America.

From 1865 to 1873, Alfred Nobel lived in Krummel.

In 1891, after being accused of high treason against France for selling Ballistite to Italy, he moved from Paris to Sanremo, Italy, acquiring Villa Alfred Nobel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, where he died in 1896.

The Monument to Alfred Nobel is in Saint Petersburg along the Bolshaya Nevka River on Petrogradskaya Embankment, the street where Nobel's family lived until 1859.

Criticism of Alfred Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales.