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INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS
Alfred Nobel
DYNAMITE

Recall all those cartoons from your childhood where the bad guy would always think of an elaborate plot to beat the good guy, and time after time the bad guy would pick up a box of Acme TNT and get blown up. If it were not for Alfred Nobel and his invention, we probably would not have those wonderful memories of dynamite blowing up the bad guy.

Alfred B. Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833. His father left his family in Sweden in 1837 and moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, to start a new business, producing submarine mines and torpedoes that he designed for the Russian government. In 1842, the family, including Alfred, his mother, and three brothers, moved to St. Petersburg. The mines made by Alfred’s father were submerged wooden caches filled with gunpowder, and were successfully used in the Crimean War (1853–1856).

Alfred Nobel and his brothers were all educated by private teachers, and they also traveled extensively. At the age of 17, Alfred was fluent in five languages, and had taken an early interest in chemistry, as well as physics, English literature, and poetry. During his travels, he visited Paris, where he met Ascanio Sobrero, an Italian chemist who had previously invented nitroglycerine, a highly explosive liquid. Nitroglycerine was a powerfully explosive but unstable mixture of glycerin and sulfuric and nitric acids. It would explode unpredictably when subjected to heat and pressure, and was considered too dangerous for practical use. Alfred Nobel became interested in solving the safety problems inherent with nitroglycerine and finding a method for its controlled detonation.

In 1852, Alfred Nobel returned to St. Petersburg to work in the family business, where he and his father experimented in reducing nitroglycerine to a useful explosive for construction purposes. After the Crimean War, in 1863, Alfred’s parents and one of his brothers, Emil, returned to Stockholm, where they worked on developing a useful form of nitroglycerine. Several explosions in their shop, including one in 1864 that killed Emil and several others, led the Stockholm city government to forbid nitroglycerine experiments within city limits. Alfred moved his experiments to a barge on Lake Mälaren, where he began to mass‐produce nitroglycerine.

Through further experimentation, he found that mixing nitroglycerine with silica would form a paste that could be molded into rods that would fit into construction drilling holes and which did not react to minor changes in temperature and pressure. He obtained a patent on this invention in 1867 (1868 in the United States), and called his product “dynamite.” He also invented and patented a detonator, or blasting cap, for the dynamite rods. Fortuitously, at the same time, the diamond drilling crown and the pneumatic drill began being used in the construction and excavating industries. The market for dynamite and detonating caps rapidly grew. His factories also developed a gelatin form of dynamite that was safe to handle.

Alfred Nobel also was a skillful entrepreneur and businessman, and eventually established factories and research facilities in 90 different locations in more than 20 countries. He made his home in Paris, though he traveled constantly. At the age of 43, he advertised for a woman to take employment as secretary and supervisor of his bachelor household. An Austrian woman, Countess Bertha Kinsky, was hired, but worked for Nobel for a very short time; she returned to Austria to marry Count Arthur von Suttner. Alfred and Bertha remained friends, and corresponded for many years. Bertha von Suttner became a leader of the anti‐armament race proliferating throughout Europe at that time, and authored a famous book, Lay Down Your Arms. Sources indicate that she influenced Alfred Nobel when he included prizes for persons or organizations promoting peace in his final will, which was signed on November 27, 1895.

In point of fact, the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bertha von Suttner by the Norwegian Parliament.

Alfred Nobel died at his home in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896, but that was not the end of his influence on humanity. When his will was opened, those who knew him, and particularly his relatives, were surprised to learn he had left the bulk of his sizeable fortune to establish an invested fund. The interest of the fund was to be distributed in the form of prizes in the categories of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” The paragraph from his will establishing the Nobel Prizes is reprinted on page 102.

The executors of his will, two young engineers, Rudolf Lilljequist and Rognar Sohlman, formed the Nobel Foundation to accomplish Nobel’s lofty purposes. These young men successfully battled Alfred Nobel’s relatives and the authorities in several countries who challenged and questioned the will. Upon successfully battling the opposition, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901.