Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833–1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist, best known for inventing dynamite and for establishing the Nobel Prizes, one of the most prestigious honors in the world.
Born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden, Nobel came from a family of engineers. His father, Immanuel Nobel, was an inventor and industrialist who moved the family to Russia when Alfred was a child. There, Nobel received a strong education in chemistry and languages, becoming fluent in Swedish, Russian, French, English, and German by the time he was a teenager.
Fascinated by science and explosives, Nobel studied under prominent chemists in Paris and later worked in the United States. He returned to Sweden in the 1860s, where he focused his research on stabilizing nitroglycerin, a powerful but highly volatile liquid explosive. In 1867, he succeeded in creating dynamite by mixing nitroglycerin with an inert substance, making it safer to handle and transport. This invention revolutionized construction, mining, and warfare, and brought Nobel considerable wealth.
Despite his success, Nobel was deeply troubled by the destructive uses of his inventions. His concern intensified when a French newspaper mistakenly published his obituary (following the death of his brother Ludvig), titled “The Merchant of Death is Dead.” The article condemned Nobel for profiting from explosives and their role in warfare. This event profoundly affected him and is believed to have influenced his decision to leave a more positive legacy.
In his will, written in 1895, just a year before his death, Alfred Nobel allocated the bulk of his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes. These were to be awarded annually to individuals who made outstanding contributions to Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, and they have since become the gold standard for recognizing excellence and service to humanity.
A Riddle
You say I am a riddle – it may be
For all of us are riddles unexplained.
Begun in pain, in deeper torture ended,
This breathing clay what business has it here?
Some petty wants to chain us to the Earth,
Some lofty thoughts to lift us to the spheres,
And cheat us with that semblance of a soul
To dream of Immortality, till Time
O’er empty visions draws the closing veil,
And a new life begins – the life of worms,
Those hungry plunderers of the human breast.
For this Hope dwindles as we fathom Truth:
Forgotten to forget – and is that all?
To-day a man, with power to act and feel,
A mirror of the Universe, wherein
Creation’s centred rays combine to form
The focus of Intelligence; to-day
A heart so deeply loving that it seems
As if that band uniting soul to soul,
Were but Religion in a brighter form;
To-day all this – to-morrow a cold corpse,
A something worse than clay which stinks and rots.
Kind hands may strew their flowers, kind eyes may drop
A tear of pity o’er the buried dust;
But worms will feed long after friends are gone,
And, after all, what matters love of theirs
When all of us, that was, is at an end.
Alfred Nobel died on December 10, 1896, in San Remo, Italy, at the age of 63. He held 355 patents and left behind a remarkable legacy—not just as an inventor, but as a visionary who sought to use science and innovation to promote peace and human progress.
“The capital … shall form a fund, the interest of which shall be distributed annually as prizes to those persons who shall have rendered humanity the best services during the past year. … One-fifth to the person having made the most important discovery or invention in the science of physics, one-fifth to the person who has made the most eminent discovery or improvement in chemistry, one-fifth to the one having made the most important discovery with regard to physiology or medicine, one-fifth to the person who has produced the most distinguished idealistic work of literature, and one-fifth to the person who has worked the most or best for advancing the fraternization of all nations and for abolishing or diminishing the standing armies as well as for the forming or propagation of committees of peace.”