Remembered for Nobel prizes posthumously, Alfred Nobel lived and died contented

A fourth son of Immanuel Nobel and Caroline Andriette Ahlsell Nobel, Alfred was known posthumously for his unmatchable contribution in bequeathing his whole fortune for establishing Nobel Prize in five fields, inventing Dynamite and registering more than 350 patents in several countries.

However Nobel himself remained a figure of paradoxes during his life: a brilliant, lonely man, part pessimist and part idealist, who invented the powerful explosives used in modern warfare and also established the most prestigious Nobel Prizes for intellectual studies and services rendered to humanity.

Alfred Nobel did not attend a University or earn a degree but turned out to be an eager pupil during private tutoring and a few educational experiences abroad. Jacobs Apologistic School ( Stockholm) , Laboratory Professor Jules Pelouze (Paris) and Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (inventor of Nitroglycerine ) can be cited among his private Alma mater.

Alfred’s parents had eight children but only four, including him, reached adulthood. Alfred himself was prone to illness during childhood, a reason behind his proximity to his mother with whom he displayed a lively intellectual curiosity from an early age.

Alfred was interested in explosives and he learnt fundamentals of engineering from his father who had failed in various business ventures until moving to St Petersburg in Russia in 1837 where he prospered as a manufacturer of explosives and machine tools.

Alfred Nobel did not win a prize during his career but was presented with an honorary award by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his ‘important inventions for the practical use of mankind’. He is known for establishing the Nobel Prizes which recognize people for their achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine , literature and peace. Synthetic chemical element nobelium is named after him and companies like Dynamite Nobel and AkzoNobel are also considered as an honor to Alfred Nobel.

Alfred Nobel had become a competent chemist by 16 and was well conversant in six languages- English, French, German, Russian, Swedish and Italian.

He spent a year in Paris studying chemistry and spent time in the United States working under the guidance of John Ericson, the builder of ironclad warship Monitor. Upon his return to St Petersburg in 1852 Alfred worked in his father’s factory manufacturing military equipment for the Crimean War. Company went bankrupt in 1858 after the war ended and it tried to switch to the peacetime production of steamboat machinery.

It was in 1862 that Alfred Nobel established a small factory to manufacture nitroglycerin and at the same time he undertook research in the home of finding a safe way to control its ( nitroglycerin) detonation. A simple wooden plug inserted into a larger charge of explosive in a metallic container served as a safer detonator in 1863. In 1865 ‘blasting cap’ came as the next phase of safer detonator by Alfred that inaugurated the modern use of high explosives.

In his personal life, Alfred Nobel was a man of austere habits, a good listener and a man of incisive wits. He never married and apparently preferred the liberty of being drawn to passionate and romantic attachment.

He had an abiding interest in literature and scripted plays, novels, poems, almost all of which remained unpublished. He had a reputation of a liberal or even socialist among his contemporaries but he actually distrusted democracy, opposed suffrage for women besides maintaining an attitude of compassionate paternalism towards his employees.

Alfred Nobel is learnt to have developed angina pectoris in 1895 that led to his demise following cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896.

According to his will written on November 27, 1895 the universe received a great surprise that the owner of Business Empire, consisting more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition, had been bequeathed in a trust to establish international awards, the Nobel Prizes.

‘Contentment is the only real wealth’ most accepted inspirational saying by Alfred Nobel, had genesis in the fact that he lived and died contented.

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