Thursday, November 26, 2015

Alfred Nobel (1833-1896)

Posted by Unknown On 3:25 AM
Alfred Nobel 
(1833-1896)
              ALFED BERNHARD Nobel was swedish chemist, inventor, industrialist and engineer. He was born in stockholm, sweden on october 21, 1883. His father Emmanuel was also an industrialist and inventor. Nobel was the third of the four sons. When Nobel was 9 years old his father moved to st. petersburg, then the capital of Russia. It meant discontinuation of his school education, however, his mother helped him in his education at home. He actually kept on moving from one city to another and lived in many countries. He knew well as many as six European and Russian.

  Nobel's father manufactured sea mines and rifles and had good profit and they lived in comfort in a magnificent home and the boys were taught at home by very good teachers. Nobel was a voracious reader and studied all kinds of subjects but above shelley's poetry. With the end of the crimean War in 1856, Emmanuel's business of sea mines and rifles began to dwindle fast. Afire in the factory completed the ruin. Then Nobel went to paris to study chemistry. later on, he went to the united states of America and worked as an apprentice to john Ericsson, an engineer and ship-builder. When 21 years old, he returned to st.Petersburg. His father had begun some experiments with nitroglxycerine. Nobel took up these experiments and developed a few new explosives.He got his new discovery patented as "Dynamite" . He founded companies in America, Europe and England which soley dealt in explosives. It made him fabulously rich and famous as the Dynamite king. He also developed some oil fields in Russia. In 1888 he invented ballastic, one of the first smokeless explosive powder.

          He never married but travelled through Europe and had houses in paris, stockholm and san Reno, Itly. He began to regard himself as a citizens of the world, however, he never gave up hi swedish citizenship. He met a Bohemain nobel woman Baroness Bertha Kinsky. They became intimate friends. Bertha wrote a small book entitled "Lay Down Arms" in 1889. It became the most talked about book throughout Europe. Under its influence sprang up many pacifist organizations. She had been secretary to Nobel for a brief period, but continued writing him letters and urged him to work for world peace and disarmament. Nobel was not sure about the effectiveness of pacifist movements and other ideas about world peace.Once in a letter to Berth he wrote, "perhaps my high explosive factories will end war sooner then your congresses. On the day when two army corps will be able to annihilate each other in a flash, all civilized nations will recoil in horror and disband their armies." He believed, "Let the sword of Damocles hang over every head, and you will witness a miracle, they all will clamour for peace.But perhaps dynamite is not sufficient to achieve that result, even if one day it will be dropped from the air on the capitals of the world. i think we need something more powerful. Perhaps war would stop instantly if that weapon was bacteria."  

      Nobel, the death-merchnt and dynamite king, who dreamt of peace and world disarmament died on december 10, 1896 at san Reno,Italy, an old, sick, Lonely and rootless millionaire. He was looked after by his old butler. The butler found him dead at his desk. He had died in harness of a heart attack. But before his death he had signed his final will and left a bulk of his fortune accounting to about $1,750,000 to a trust fund administered by swedish and norwegian trustees. The annual intrest of the above fund would  be awarded as prize to those men and women who during the previos year had rendered the greatest service to mankind. Noble created these prizes as a tribute to his friend Bertha Kinsky who later become Bertha Von Suttner. He left to the executors of his will to work out the details of administering the prize. Nine years later Bertha was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

       Today Nobel prizes are the most famous and given in six dissciplines each year. Three of these discipline are-physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. The three other are literature,peace and economics. The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. The winners of these most prestigious prizes who make truly great contribution in their respective field of discipline are called Nobel Laureates. The sisth prize for economics was established by the swedish national bank in 1968 and award for the first time.
      

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