Swedish chemical engineer, entrepreneur, founder of the famous awards Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm. His father, Immanuel Nobel, was an engineer and inventor. In 1837, due to financial problems, he moved to Finland and then to Russia, settling in St. Petersburg.
Alfred's mother, Andriette Nobel, remained in Stockholm to take care of the family, which at that time had two more children besides Alfred - Robert and Ludwig.

In Russia, Emmanuel Nobel proposed to Tsar Nicholas I a new design of sea mines. After testing Russian government allocated money to Nobel for the development of the business. Soon he received permission to establish a foundry for the production of weapons. The Nobel plant produced machine tools for the production of cart wheels, the first home heating systems in Russia using hot water. In 1853, Emmanuel received the Imperial Gold Medal for equipping 11 warships with steam engines made by him.

In October 1842, Andrietta and her children came to her husband, and a year later another son, Emil, appeared in their family.

The four Nobel brothers received a first-class home education with the help of visiting teachers. The children were engaged natural sciences studied languages ​​and literature. At the age of 17, Alfred could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German.

In 1850, his father sent Alfred on a trip to France, Italy, Germany and the United States. In Paris, for a year, the young man worked in the laboratory of the famous chemist Theophile Jules Pelouse, who in 1836 established the composition of glycerin. Ascanio Sobrero worked in his laboratory from 1840 to 1843, who first obtained nitroglycerin.

In 1852, Alfred returned to St. Petersburg and continued to work at his father's enterprise.

After the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War, Nobel lost military orders, and his enterprise went bankrupt. In 1859 he returned to Sweden with his wife and Emil. Robert moved to Finland, Ludwig very successfully liquidated his father's plant and founded his own plant, Ludwig Nobel, which would later be called Russian Diesel. Alfred Nobel worked for the famous chemist Nikolai Zinin, who, since 1853, had been experimenting with nitroglycerin (together with his student Vasily Petrushevsky). In May 1862, Alfred Nobel began his first independent experiments with this substance, and in 1863 he made an underwater explosion in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, using a fuse invented by him, later called "Nobel". An attempt to patent a method of using nitroglycerin as an explosive in the Main Engineering Directorate of St. Petersburg ended in failure, and Nobel went to his parents in Stockholm. Here he engaged in further experiments with nitroglycerin and in October 1864 received a patent in Sweden for the production of an explosive mixture and his fuse. At the same time, together with his father and brothers, he began the construction of two factories for the production of nitroglycerin. However, soon there was a powerful explosion on one of them, located in Heleborg, as a result of which Alfred's younger brother, Emil, died.

Accidents while working with nitroglycerin occurred more and more often, and the Swedish government imposed a ban on its production. To avoid bankruptcy, Nobel undertook an intensive search for ways to reduce the explosiveness of nitroglycerin. In 1866, he discovered that the power of nitroglycerin stabilizes diatomaceous earth, a finely porous sedimentary rock composed of the siliceous skeletons of unicellular marine organisms, diatoms. He mixed nitroglycerin with diatomaceous earth and in 1867 received a patent for his discovery, dynamite.

Interest in dynamite was exceptionally great, and the construction of factories for its production began in a number of countries. Some of them were built by Nobel himself; others purchased a license to use his patents. During this period, the Swedish engineer and inventor proved himself to be an outstanding entrepreneur and a good financier. At the same time, he continued his research in the field of chemistry and created new, even more effective explosives. In 1887, after numerous experiments, he received a smokeless nitroglycerin gunpowder - ballistite. The products of Nobel's dynamite factories quickly conquered the international market and brought in huge profits. At the same time, Nobel himself was an ardent pacifist and maintained ties with some public figures. late XIX century, preparing the Congress for Peace.

On March 14, 1893, Nobel made a will in which he disposed of the main part of the inheritance after the payment of debts and taxes, as well as deducting the share and gift bequeathed to the heirs in the amount of 1% of the Austrian Peace League and 5% of Stockholm University, the Stockholm Hospital and the Karolinska Medical Institute, hand over to the Royal Academy of Sciences. This amount was intended "to form a fund, the proceeds of which will be distributed annually by the Academy as a reward for the most important and original discoveries or intellectual achievements in a wide field of knowledge and progress." On November 27, 1895, Nobel wrote a second will, canceling the first. The new text of the will stated that his entire fortune should be turned into money, which should be invested in reliable shares and other securities - they form a fund. The annual income from this fund shall be divided into five parts and distributed as follows: one part is given for the largest discovery in the field of physics, the second for the largest discovery or invention in the field of chemistry, the third for discoveries in the field of physiology and medicine, the remaining two parts are intended to reward individuals who have achieved success in the field of literature or the peace movement.

December 7, 1896 Nobel suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and December 10, 1896 died in San Remo (Italy). He was buried at the Norra cemetery in Stockholm.
Nobel's second will was opened in January 1897. After completing all the formalities, Nobel's idea became a reality: on June 29, 1900, the foundation's charter was approved by the Swedish Parliament. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901.

During his life, Nobel patented 355 inventions in various countries. Nobel's companies were located in about 20 countries, and various explosives were produced according to his patents in 100 factories around the world.

Nobel lived and worked in many countries, including Sweden, Russia, France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy. He was passionate about literature and wrote poetry and plays. In his youth, he seriously hesitated, deciding whether to become an inventor or a poet, and shortly before his death he wrote the tragedy Nemesis.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

1. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF ALFRED NOBEL

Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm. His father, Immanuel Nobel (1801-1872), a middling entrepreneur, having gone bankrupt, decided to try his luck in Russia and in 1837 moved to St. Petersburg. Here he opened mechanical workshops, and five years later, when things got better, he moved his family to St. Petersburg. For nine-year-old Alfred, Russian very soon became his second native language. In addition, he was fluent in English, French, German and Italian.

During Crimean War 1853-1856 Nobel's workshops produced underwater mines and other weapons for the Russian navy. Immanuel Nobel was awarded the gold medal "For Diligence and Development of Russian Industry", but after the end of the war, there were no naval orders, and in 1859 he returned to Stockholm.

Alfred Nobel did not receive a systematic education. At first he studied at home, then traveled around America and Europe for educational purposes, and after that he studied chemistry in Paris for two years in the laboratory of the famous French scientist T. Peluza. After his father left for Stockholm, Alfred Nobel began researching the properties of nitroglycerin. Perhaps this was facilitated by the frequent communication of Nobel with the outstanding Russian chemist Zinin. But on September 3, 1864, Stockholm was rocked by a powerful explosion. One hundred kilograms of nitroglycerin, waiting to be sent to the new factory of the Nobel brothers, turned the building into ruins and buried all the workers under the rubble. Swedish newspapers wrote in horror: "There were no corpses, only a pile of meat and bones." Alfred escaped with minor wounds on his face, but the worst news awaited him ahead: during the disaster, along with the workers, his younger brother Emil, who came to visit his relatives on vacation, died. When the father was informed of what had happened, he remained silent for several minutes, then jerked his head, as if about to say something, and awkwardly collapsed into an armchair: the old man was paralyzed.

On October 14, 1864, Alfred Nobel took out a patent for the right to produce an explosive containing nitroglycerin. This was followed by patents for the detonator ("Nobel fuse"), dynamite, gelled dynamite, smokeless powder, etc. etc. In total, he owns 350 patents, and not all of them are related to explosives. Among them are patents for a water meter, a barometer, a refrigeration apparatus, a gas burner, an improved method for producing sulfuric acid, a military missile design, and much more. Nobel's interests were extremely diverse. He studied electrochemistry and optics, biology and medicine, designed automatic brakes and safe steam boilers, tried to make artificial rubber and leather, studied nitrocellulose and rayon, and worked on obtaining light alloys. Undoubtedly, he was one of the most educated people of his time. He read many books on technology and medicine, history and philosophy, fiction(and even tried to write himself), was familiar with kings and ministers, scientists and entrepreneurs, artists and writers, for example, Victor Hugo. Nobel was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the Paris Society of Civil Engineers. Uppsala University awarded him an honorary Ph.D. Among the inventor's awards are the Swedish Order of the Polar Star, the French Order of the Legion of Honor, the Brazilian Order of the Rose and the Venezuelan Order of Bolivar. But all honors left him indifferent. He was a gloomy man who loved loneliness, avoiding cheerful companies and completely immersed in work.

In June 1865 Alfred moved to Hamburg. Albert arranged an advertising display of explosives, calmly kept bottles of nitroglycerin in boiling water, smashed them on a stone platform, set fire to a torch - the explosive behaved calmly. Everyone was confident in the possibility of complete control of this substance, but two months later, in November 1865, there were explosions at two mines in Sweden, then the Nobel plant in Krümmel flew into the air, a few days later, the explosion of a nitroglycerin plant shocked the United States, and soon ships carrying nitroglycerin began to sink. The panic began. Many countries have adopted laws prohibiting the production and transportation of nitroglycerin and substances containing it in their territories. The family was utterly ruined. The shipping companies and the families of the victims filed gigantic lawsuits. But Nobel did not break down. Having patented the Dynamite trademark on May 7, 1867, Nobel began to collect huge profits. Newspapers of those years wrote that the engineer made his discovery by accident. During transportation, a bottle of nitroglycerin broke, the spilled liquid soaked the ground, and the result was dynamite. Nobel has always denied this. He claimed that he was deliberately looking for a substance that, when mixed with nitroglycerin, would reduce his explosiveness. Kieselguhr became such a neutralizer. This rock is also called tripol (from Tripoli in Libya, where it was mined). It may seem strange that a man who devoted his whole life to the creation of powerful means of destruction, bequeathed part of the money he earned to peace prizes. What's this? Redemption? But for military purposes, "Nobel's explosives" began to be used only during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, and at first the explosives created by him were used for peaceful purposes: for building tunnels and canals with the help of blasting, laying railways and roads, mining mineral. He himself said: "I would like to invent a substance or a machine with such destructive power that any war in general would become impossible." Nobel gave money for holding congresses on peace issues, and took part in them.

When Nobel undertook the creation of a "superweapon", he formulated his "anti-war" position at that moment as follows: "My dynamite factories will sooner end the war than your congresses. On the day when two armies can mutually annihilate within a few seconds, all civilized the nations, terrified, will disband their armies." The habit of thinking globally remained with him until the end of his days.

One thought haunted Alfred: who would get his gigantic fortune? The brothers did not live in poverty - the volume of production of Baku oil, owned by the Nobel family, at that time exceeded the volume of oil produced in the United States, and accounted for more than half of the entire world production. Alfred did not like distant relatives and, not without reason, considered them idlers waiting for his death. Having broken his smart head for more than one day and more than one night, Nobel decided to create a special fund. Here played a role, I think, and one misunderstanding. One day, namely on April 13, 1888, Alfred found an obituary in the morning newspaper, which said that he ... had died. About the deceased, it was said approximately in the same spirit that he is a "dynamite king" and a "dealer in death", and about income: "a fortune acquired by blood." (Perhaps for the first time Alfred Nobel was puzzled by the question: what do people all over the world think about him.) He did not immediately understand that the clumsy author had confused him with his brother Ludwig ... And one night Nobel made an addition to his will. The king of dynamite, the richest of the people, wanted to have his veins cut after death, just in case. More than anything, he was afraid of being buried alive...

The realization that the wealth acquired mainly on dynamite, thanks to the fund created according to his will, would serve progress and the cause of peace, encouraged Nobel.

Nobel discovered that nitroglycerin as part of an inert substance such as diatomaceous earth (kieselguhr) became safer and more convenient to use, and he patented this mixture in 1867 under the name "dynamite". He then combined nitroglycerin with another high explosive, gunpowder, to produce a clear, jelly-like substance that was more explosive than dynamite. Explosive jelly, as it was called, was patented in 1876. This was followed by experiments on making similar combinations with potassium nitrate, wood pulp, etc. A few years later, Nobel invented ballistite, one of the first nitroglycerin smokeless powders, consisting in one of the latest versions equal parts gunpowder and nitroglycerin. This powder would become the forerunner of cordite, and Nobel's claim that his patent also included cordite would be the subject of bitter litigation between him and the British government in 1894 and 1895.

Cordite also consists of nitroglycerine and gunpowder, and the researchers wanted to use the most nitrated form of gunpowder, insoluble in mixtures of ether and alcohol, while Nobel proposed the use of less nitrated forms that are soluble in these mixtures. The issue was complicated by the fact that in practice it is almost impossible to prepare one of the forms in its pure form, without admixture of the second. Ultimately, the court ruled against Nobel. From the production of dynamite and other explosives, Nobel accumulated a significant fortune.

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Almost all people in the world know about Alfred Nobel today. His famous Nobel Prize is sought by researchers and scientists. That is how this amazing man entered world history.

Although many also know that he also invented great Alfred Nobel in life dynamite. Biography of Nobel - interesting story life of the inventor and personality.

Relatives and friends of the great inventor

On October 21, 2833, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the future famous chemist and inventor, engineer and founder of a huge world-class award, was born in the Swedish city of Stockholm. The biography of this interesting person surprises many biographers to this day.

Alfred was born to the family of Emmanuel and Andrietta Nobel, who had eight offspring in total. But only four survived: Alfred, Robert, Emil and Ludwig.

Although later, at the age of twenty, during experiments with dynamite discovered by Alfred Nobel, another son of the Nobel couple, Emil, dies. This grief breaks the father of the family with paralysis, leaves a deep bitter mark in the soul of Alfred himself. But he still does not leave his ideas and makes discoveries one after another.

Key dates in the life of the founder of the famous Nobel Prize

A brief biography of Alfred Nobel can be represented by the following main events:

• 1842 - the Nobel family moved to St. Petersburg. Alfred Nobel developed the idea of ​​producing torpedoes.
• 1849 - Alfred Nobel begins to study in Europe and America. For two years the young man travels the world, visits Denmark, Italy, Germany, France, then America.
• 1851 - return to Russia. Alfred Nobel becomes a manufacturer, fulfilling the orders of the Russian army.
• 1853 - The Crimean War helps the Nobel family business to make good profits and enter the heyday.
• 1859 - Ludwig Emmanuel Nobel becomes a manufacturer. Due to the bankruptcy of the family business, Alfred returns to Sweden with his father and begins to work closely on explosives. At the same time, he receives a loan of 100 thousand francs and begins research work in the field of chemistry, experimenting and inventing new elements, compounds and mixtures.
• 1868 - Alfred Nobel discovers dynamite, consisting of a mixture of nitroglycerin with other substances that have the ability to absorb it.
• 1876 ​​- the discovery of "explosive jelly" - the combination of nitroglycerin with collodion. This "jelly" had a stronger explosiveness than the previously discovered dynamite. The following years are full of discoveries of other combinations of nitroglycerin with substances. The first smokeless powder, called ballistite, was a huge leap ahead of dynamite. Ballistite is followed by the discovery of cordite.
• 1889 - participation in the World Peace Congress.
• 1894, 1895 - Litigation over Nobel's statement that cordite was already included in his earlier patent of discoveries.
• 1896, December 10, a villa in San Remo in Italy - Alfred Nobel died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of sixty-three. Nobel's tomb is located at the Stockholm cemetery Norra begravningsplatsen.

This is the fate of Alfred Nobel, presented in a brief biography the greatest man with a worldwide reputation.

An interesting but little known fact

Few people know, but Alfred Nobel not only invented dynamite and established a nominal prize, he revealed his dramatic talent. True, the biography of Nobel the playwright cannot boast of an extensive list of works he created. The bulk of his works - novels, poems, plays - were never published. Only one work is known - a play about Beatrice Cenci called "Nemesis", completed by him already at death.

This tragedy in four acts was met with hostility by churchmen, so the entire circulation of the publication, published in 1896, was destroyed after Nobel's death, with the exception of three copies.

But, fortunately, in Sweden in 2003, a bilingual edition of the play was published, written both in Swedish and in Esperanto. And in 2005, the world had the good fortune to get acquainted with this work, played on the Stockholm stage in memory of the great scientist on the day of his death.

This fact indicates how versatile this amazing person, Alfred Nobel, was talented. And it will seem quite surprising to many that the famous inventor and chemist was seriously thinking about giving up his research and experiments and setting foot on the path of writing.

I wonder if the population of the earth would have won then or turned out to be a loser? After all, perhaps dynamite would not have been invented then, or would have been invented much later. And instead of it, we would get a lot of talented works of the highest level ...

The character of a man with a worldwide reputation

Alfred Nobel surprised his contemporaries with his controversial character. Not everyone understood his paradoxical behavior. Being quite wealthy, Alfred gravitated downright to the Spartan way of life, he longed for solitude. Indeed, in the era of developing capitalism, many successful businessmen were not such.

However, fate seemed to deliberately put him in conditions that disgusted him. Life forced Nobel, who could not stand the bustle of the city, to spend most of his time in cities. Being a homebody and preferring thoughts in quiet solitude, Alfred Nobel spent a lot of time traveling around the world.

Working on explosives and mixtures, Alfred Nobel was an opponent of murder and violence, did a great job in the name of peace on earth. But the fact remains: dynamite was discovered by him.

Alfred Nobel surprised his contemporaries by the fact that he led healthy lifestyle life, as they would say today. He had a negative attitude towards alcohol, smoking, gambling.

At that time, bigwigs, by and large, were engaged in two things: making money without thinking about their "smell", and spending millions, trying to "take everything out of life that you can." Alfred Nobel, preferring solitude, loved to read. In his chic library were the works of the great scientists of that time. With pleasure Nobel Alfred read his contemporaries: Maupassant, Balzac, Turgenev, Hugo.

Fashionable at that time, the naturalism inherent in the writer's pen of Emile Zola was not to Nobel's taste. But he could re-read the works of philosophers of all times several times, reflecting on this or that position and making his own unique notes and developments on this or that issue. After all, Alfred Nobel himself was not only a chemist, but also a doctor of philosophy.

In memory of discoveries

Alfred Nobel, inventing dynamite and other explosive mixtures, was an ardent pacifist. He saw a different application of his discoveries, which would help develop the progress of mankind, and not kill each other. But the persecution that began in the media about the fact that Alfred Nobel was able to invent dynamite prompted him to think that another bright mark should be left in this world.

So the inventor came to the decision to establish a nominal prize after his death, writing a will on November 27, 1895, according to which most of his accumulated fortune - 31 million crowns - goes to the Nobel Prize fund. This fact of Nobel's life made his biography a historical milestone on a global scale.

In addition to the well-known Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel entered world history as a discoverer chemical element, which was named after him by the Nobel Prize.

The name of the great scientist-chemist is Dnepropetrovsk University and the Stockholm Institute of Physics and Chemistry.

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The fourth of eight children of Immanuel and Carolina Nobel, Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in the Swedish city of Stockholm. As a child, he was often sick, but always showed a keen interest in the world around him. Despite the fact that Nobel's father was an experienced engineer and an outstanding inventor, he did not give up trying to establish a profitable business in Sweden. When Alfred was 4 years old, his father moved to Russia, to St. Petersburg, to head the production of explosives. In 1842 the family moved to him. In Russia, wealthy parents hire Alfreda private teachers. He easily masters chemistry and speaks fluently, in addition to his native Swedish, English, French, German and Russian.

Invention and legacy

At the age of 18, Alfred leaves Russia. After spending a year in Paris, where he continues to study chemistry, Nobel moves to the United States. Five years later, Alfred returns to Russia, where he begins working at his father's factory, manufacturing military equipment for the Crimean War. In 1859, at the very end of the war, the company went bankrupt. The family moves back to Sweden, where Alfred soon begins his experiments with explosives. In 1864, when Alfred was 29, a powerful explosion occurred at the family factory in Sweden, killing five people, among whom was Alfred's younger brother Emil. Strongly impressed by the tragedy, Nobel proceeds to invent safer explosives. And in 1867, he patented a mixture of nitroglycerin and an absorbent substance, which he called "dynamite."

In 1888 Alfred's brother Ludwig dies in France. But, due to a ridiculous mistake, an obituary for the death of Alfred himself appears in the newspapers, in which the creation of dynamite is sharply condemned. Outraged by this incident and disappointed in the hopes of leaving a good memory of himself, Nobel renounces his part of the family fortune in favor of creating the Nobel Prize, designed to reward scientists of both sexes for outstanding achievements in the field of physics, chemistry, medicine and literature, as well as for their work in the field. peace achievement.

On December 10, 1896, in the city of San Remo (Italy), Nobel dies from a stroke that has seized him. After paying taxes and deducting private inheritance shares from his fortune, 31,225,000 SEK (equivalent in 2008 to 250 million US dollars) goes to the Nobel Prize fund.

Alfred Nobel short biography outlined in this article.

Alfred Nobel short biography

Alfred Bernhard Nobel- Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor of dynamite

Nobel's father was an experienced engineer and an outstanding inventor, and tried to establish a profitable business in Sweden. In 1842, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where his father headed the production of explosives. In Russia, wealthy parents hire Alfreda private teachers. He easily masters chemistry and speaks fluently, in addition to his native Swedish, English, French, German and Russian.

In 1850, when Alfred reached the age of 17, he went on a journey during which he visited Europe and then the United States. In Paris he studied chemistry, and in the USA he met John Ericsson, the Swedish inventor of the steam engine. After 3 years, returning to St. Petersburg, Alfred Nobel began working in his father's company, which specialized in the production of ammunition during the Crimean War. After the end of the war, the company began to produce parts for steamships being built on the Caspian Sea and the Volga River. Returning to Sweden with his family, Alfred devoted all his time to mechanical and chemical experiments.

In 1863, Alfred managed to invent a detonator that made it possible to use gunpowder to explode nitroglycerin. This invention created his reputation and raised his well-being. He became the richest chemist in history. But a successful invention turns into a tragedy. His Stockholm lab is blown up. From a powerful explosion, his brother Emil and a close friend, the chemist Hetzman, die.

Nobel never allowed the idea that dynamite would be used not only in construction and mining, but also to destroy people. The news of the latter caused the inventor to have a heart attack. In the future, he repeatedly made unsuccessful attempts to prohibit the use of this explosive for military purposes.

In the 1980s, Nobel invented smokeless powder. All European countries began to buy this explosive.

Nobel continues to invent. Total number his patents reach 355. Nobel also experimented with artificial substitutes for silk, leather and rubber.

In 1891, after a quarrel with France, Nobel established his residence in San Remo. There he built a small chemical laboratory, in 1894 he acquired an ironworks in Verlande. At the same time, Alfred began to feel pain in his heart. He consulted doctors in Paris and was warned about the development of angina pectoris (the heart muscle is not adequately supplied with oxygen). Nobel tried to finish and left a handwritten note of his dying wish.

On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel died at his villa in Sanremo, Italy, from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 63 years old.