Swedish chemist, inventor and industrialist, founder of the Nobel Prize. Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, and studied at St. Jakobi Church School in Stockholm from 1841 to 1842, and with Russian and Swiss tutors in Petersburg, Russia, from 1843 to 1850, and from 1850 to 1852, he traveled to Europe and the United States to expand his knowledge and broaden his horizons. From 1850 to 1852, Nobel traveled and studied extensively in Europe and America to increase his knowledge and broaden his horizons. At the age of 16, he was already proficient in English, German, French, Swiss, Swedish and Russian, which laid a solid foundation for his future inventions.
Nobel's father, Emanuel Nobel, was an inventor who owned large mechanical factories in Russia, and was engaged in the production of large-scale mines in St. Petersburg in 1840-1859, which, along with other weapons, were used in the Crimean War. He invented a boiler system for domestic heating, designed a machine for making wooden wheels, designed and built a large forging hammer, remodeled factory equipment, and in 1853 Tsar Nicholas I exceptionally awarded Emanuel Nobel the Order of Merit in recognition of his achievements. Under the influence and guidance of his father's never-ending creative spirit, Nobel embarked on a glorious path of scientific invention.
Nobel grew up in St. Petersburg and went to France and the United States to further his education. After completing his studies, he returned to Sweden to engage in chemistry, especially the research and invention of explosives. Nobel father and son set up a laboratory in the suburbs of Stockholm, developed the first solution to the detonation of explosives, mercuric tubes. 1863 began to produce glycerine explosives, liquid explosives are prone to explosive accidents, in 1866, he made a solid security of violent explosives "Danamart", this product became the cornerstone of the Nobel international industrial group. 1867, he made a solid explosive "Danamart", this product became the cornerstone of the Nobel international industrial group. In 1867, he invented the safety detonator, and then invented a variety of more powerful explosives. His life **** all kinds of explosives and rayon and other nearly 400 inventions, was awarded 85 patents. These inventions make Nobel in the history of world chemistry occupies an important position. Nobel through the manufacture of explosives to accumulate a lot of wealth, he bought Sweden B. Golspan arms chemical plant sex most of the shares, the creation of the Nobel Chemical Company, the production of explosives in Western Europe to open the two trusts, has in Baku, Russia, the exploitation of oil Nobel Brothers Company.
Before his death, he made a will in 1895, and put most of his property of $9.2 million as a fund, with its annual interest ($200,000 per year) to set up five kinds of prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and the cause of peace (in 1969, the Swedish national root of the bank to add a prize for economics), rewarding the scholars who have made the greatest contribution to the above fields in the current year. Since 1901, the prizes have been awarded on December 10, the date of Nobel's death.
Alfred Nobel was reluctant to write a biography, believing that no one would read those articles about a person.
Nobel said of himself personally - "Greatest virtue: kept his fingernails clean, never a burden to anyone. Greatest trait: no family, lack of a spirit of joy and a good appetite. Biggest and only request: not to be buried alive. Biggest sin: not worshipping the god of wealth. Important events in life: none."
Nobel's life under the threat of death for mankind to the power of nature, in the story of his life's scientific and technological achievements, he only used a few short sentences - "The author of this paper was born on October 21, 1833, he learned from his tutor, never entered the He has never attended a school of higher learning. He was especially devoted to the study of applied chemistry, and the explosives he invented during his lifetime were: dynamite, smokeless gunpowder, 'Balistear' or C89, and in 1884 he joined the Royal Swedish Society of Science, the Royal Society of London, and the Institution of Civil Engineers of Paris, and was awarded the Order of Science in 1880 by the King of Sweden, and the Grand Medal of France. Medal."
On October 21, 1833, Alfred Burkhard Nobel was born. According to Swedish naming conventions, Alfred is the first name and Nobel is the last name. However, according to the later convention, the Nobel family name was later usually used to refer to Alfred himself.
Noble was born when his family was bankrupted by a fire, and his father feared that he would not live long, for he seemed to have no strength to breathe or to breastfeed, and spent his early years in the shadow of infirmity.
Alfred Nobel's school life stopped at elementary school. When he reached school age, he was sent to St. James' Senior Guards Primary School in Stockholm for a few semesters. At this elementary school he scored the highest marks in all his schoolwork as well as in character, and was one of three students out of 82 to receive the highest marks.
In 1842, Nobel went to live with his family in Petersburg, Russia, where his father organized a Nobel home school for his three brothers. For the next six or seven years, the poetry-loving Nobel dreamed of "Shelley," but his father was disgusted, believing that poetry was just a pastime for lazy women, and that a man of honor should not and did not care to enjoy it. Within the home school, the greatest influence on Nobel's science education was the tutor Zinin, the most famous Russian chemist of his time.
In 1850, when Nobel was 17 years old, his father, for the development of the family business, decided to send Nobel to the European countries and the United States to see the world, and at the same time to study the European countries and the United States of America in the mechanical and chemical status and progress. It was not until he was 21 that he returned to Petersburg. During this period, he began to contact the manufacturing technology of nitroglycerine explosives. 1863, Nobel returned to Sweden, with his father and brother *** with the development of explosives, due to an accidental explosion destroyed the workshop, killed his brother, the government prohibited them from conducting further tests. He therefore once set up his laboratory on a barge on Lake Mara outside Stockholm.
One day in the fall of 1866, the explosion of mercury fulminate was successfully tested, it is today's widely used detonators. Since then, Nobel's inventions in explosives have made him the "father of modern explosives".
Nobel was forced to move to San Remo, Italy in 1891 due to the rejection of the French government. He was 58 years old at that time, and he died here in 1896 during the 6 years, he was constantly working on a variety of new inventions in San Remo, which involved the fields of chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and medicine.
How many inventions did Nobel accomplish and how many patents did he receive? According to the incomplete statistics made by Nobel's assistant, Solman, Nobel was awarded 351 patents in his life.
On November 28, 1896, Nobel fell in his study, and his servants immediately carried him up to his bedroom on the second floor. When the hired doctor arrived, Nobel's brain was partially necrotic. He was completely unable to speak in his familiar French and Italian, except for a few mumbles in his native Swedish. The assistants, doctors and servants present, all French and Italian, could not understand his last words, except for the word telegram. December 10, the same year, 2:00 am, Nobel died of cerebral hemorrhage, aged 63 years.
When Nobel was dying, he did not have a friend or relative by his side, and even his favorite assistant, Solman, was far away in Sweden. As he feared, "On my deathbed, there may not be a single friend or relative who will be kind enough to close my eyelids and whisper a final word of comfort in my ear."
A generation of technological superstars, thus fallen from the stars at the end of the century.
Bell's Will
In the last years of his life, Nobel made three wills with very similar contents. The first was made in 1889, the second in 1893, and the third in 1895, and was finally deposited in a bank in Stockholm, which is the last will and testament that was to prevail.
This will, which eliminated the portion to be divided among family and friends, and devoted the entirety of his estate to the establishment of an incentive fund, was made public in Sweden early in 1897:
The undersigned, Alfred Noble, after mature deliberation, hereby declares his last will and testament concerning the property which may be left to him after my death to be as follows:
The whole of the property left to me, which may be converted into cash, shall be disposed of in the following manner. property, will be disposed of in the following manner: this capital is to be invested by my executors in the safe side of securities, and will constitute a kind of fund; the interest on it will be distributed annually, in the form of prizes, to those who have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year. The said interest will be divided equally into five portions, which will be distributed as follows: one portion to the person who has made the most important discoveries or inventions in physics; one portion to the person who has made the most important chemical discoveries or improvements; one portion to the person who has made the most important discoveries in the field of physiology and medicine; one portion to the person who has produced the most distinguished works of an idealistic tendency in literature; and one portion to the person who has done the most for the promotion of amity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding of peace conferences. The prizes for physics and chemistry will be awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the prizes for physiology and medicine by the Caroline School of Medicine at Stockholm; the prizes for literature by the Swedish Academy of Letters at Stockholm; and the prizes for peace by a committee of five persons elected by the Norwegian Parliament. It is my express wish that these prizes should be awarded without the slightest regard to the nationality of the candidate for the award, whether he be Scandinavian or not, and that the prize should be awarded to him as long as he deserves it.
I hereby declare that it is my earnest wish that the prizes should be so awarded.
This is my only valid will. Any previous wills relating to the disposition of my property found after my death are null and void.
Alfred Burkhard Nobel
November 27, 1895
The Will Was Condemned
At the beginning of the publication of Nobel's will, criticism and condemnation prevailed in Swedish public opinion. The press openly encouraged relatives to appeal against it, mainly on the grounds of "legal defects" and "unpatriotic". The press said that it would be purely unpatriotic for a Swede not to take care of the interests of Sweden, neither to donate the large bequest to Sweden, nor to give the Swedes or even the Scandinavians priority in the award of the prizes, but also to oblige Sweden to undertake the extra work, thus causing the Swedes trouble which could not be of any benefit to them, and that it was unlikely that the prize-granting institutions of Sweden would be able to accomplish the tasks assigned to them satisfactorily. The will also gave the task of awarding peace prizes to a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting, and the relations between Sweden and Norway, already very strained at the time, were about to be seriously jeopardized in Sweden's interests. A section of the Social Democrats charged that Nobel's establishment of the prize money to support individual eminent persons was not conducive to social progress. They argued that Nobel's fortune came from labor and nature and should benefit every member of society.
And criticism of the legal flaws had been thought to invalidate the entire will. The first fault singled out by high-minded lawyers was that the will did not clearly speak of the country of which the testator was a citizen. This made it difficult to determine which country's law enforcement agency should rule on the legality of the will, much less which government should organize the Nobel Foundation Committee. This accusation is not without merit, for, Nobel was born in Sweden, grew up in Russia, had entrepreneurial activities all over Europe, and in his later years did not become a naturalized citizen of any European country. The second fault they singled out was that the will did not specify who would be responsible for the safekeeping of the entire estate. They say that although the will says that a foundation is to be set up, it again does not specify who is to organize it. Therefore, it can be argued that the executor of the will is not entitled to inherit the estate and the foundation to inherit the estate does not exist.
The most demoralizing thing is that Nobel entrusted the Swedish Academy of Sciences in his will to evaluate the physics and chemistry prizes, while Hans Forscher, the president of the Academy, advocated that Nobel's estate should be donated to the Swedish Academy, and Forscher refused to participate in the meeting to study the details of the evaluation of the prizes.
The executor of the will, Solman, and others worked tirelessly, and on May 21, 1898, the King of Sweden declared Nobel's will in force.
On June 29, 1900, the Swedish parliament adopted the statutes of the Nobel Foundation.
The first Nobel Prize was awarded on December 10, 1901, the fifth anniversary of Nobel's death.