The inventor of dynamite is Nobel. History of the invention of dynamite

Alfred Bernhard Nobel is a Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist, who invented dynamite and more powerful explosives, and also founded the Nobel Prize.

Biography

The future inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm (Sweden) on October 21, 1833. He was the fourth son of Emmanuel and Caroline Nobel. Emmanuel was an engineer who married Caroline Andrietta Alzel in 1827. The couple had eight children, of whom only Alfred and the three brothers reached adulthood. In his childhood, Nobel was often sick, but from an early age he showed a lively curiosity. He was interested in explosives and learned the basics of engineering from his father. In the meantime, his father failed in various commercial enterprises, until in 1837 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he became a successful producer of mines and tools.

Life Abroad

In 1842 the Nobel family left Stockholm to join his father in St. Petersburg. Alfred's wealthy parents could now hire him private teachers, and he turned out to be an impatient student. By the age of 16, Nobel became an expert chemist, fluent in English, German, French and Russian.

In 1850, Alfred left Russia to spend a year in Paris, studying chemistry, and then four years in the United States, working under the leadership of John Erickson, who created the armadillo Monitor. On his return to St. Petersburg, he worked at his father's factory, which produced military equipment during the Crimean War. After the end of hostilities in 1856, the company had difficulty moving to the manufacture of equipment for steamboats and went bankrupt in 1859.

The bet on nitroglycerin

The future inventor of dynamite did not stay in Russia and returned with his parents to Sweden, and his brothers Robert and Ludwig decided to save the remains of the family enterprise. Soon Alfred began to experiment with explosives in a small laboratory in his father's estate. At that time the only reliable explosive used in the mines was black powder. The newly created liquid nitroglycerin was much more powerful, but it was so unstable that it could not provide any kind of security. Nevertheless, in 1862, Nobel built a small factory for its production, while doing research in the hope of finding a way to control his detonation.

In 1863, he invented a practical detonator consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a large charge of nitroglycerin stored in a metal container. The explosion of a small charge of black powder in a plug detonated a much more powerful charge of a liquid explosive. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobel's reputation as an inventor, as well as his state, which he will acquire as a producer of explosives.

In 1865, Alfred created an advanced detonator capsule, which consisted of a small metal cover with a charge of rattling mercury, which was either blasted by impact or by moderate heating. This invention was the beginning of the modern use of explosives.

Accident

Nitroglycerin itself, however, was difficult to transport, and it was extremely dangerous to handle. So dangerous that the Nobel plant exploded in 1864, killing the life of his younger brother Emil and other people. Not frightened by this tragic accident, Alfred built several factories for the production of nitroglycerin for use with its primers. These enterprises were as safe as the knowledge of that time allowed, but random explosions continued to occur.

Good luck

The second important invention of Nobel was dynamite. In 1867, he accidentally discovered that nitroglycerin is completely absorbed by the porous silica, and the resulting mixture was much safer to use and easier to handle. Alfred - the inventor of dynamite (from the Greek δύναμις, "force") - received him patents in Britain (1867) and the United States (1868). The explosive glorified its creator all over the world, and soon it was used for laying tunnels and canals, building railroads and highways.

Rattlesnake Jelly

In the 1870s and 80s, the inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel built a network of factories for the production of explosives throughout Europe and formed a network of corporations for their sale. He also continued to experiment in search of the best of them, and in 1875 he created a more powerful form of dynamite, a rattling jelly that he patented the following year. Again, by chance, he discovered that a mixture of a solution of nitroglycerin with a loose fibrous substance, known as nitrocellulose, forms a dense, plastic material with a high water resistance and a greater explosion power. In 1887, Nobel presented ballistite, nitroglycerin smokeless powder and the predecessor of cordite. Although Alfred possessed patents for dynamite and other explosives, he was in constant conflict with competitors who steal his technology, which several times forced him to conduct protracted patent disputes.

Oil, weapons, wealth

The Nobel brothers, Ludwig and Robert, meanwhile, developed newly discovered oil fields near Baku (now in Azerbaijan) off the Caspian Sea and themselves became very rich people. Sales around the world of explosives, as well as participation in brothers' companies in Russia, brought Alfred a huge fortune. In 1893, the dynamite inventor became interested in the Swedish military industry, and the following year he bought a cast iron smelter in Bofors, near Vermland, which became the center of a well-known arms factory. In addition to explosives, Nobel invented many other things, such as artificial silk and leather, and as a whole he registered more than 350 patents in various countries.

Ascetic, writer, pacifist

The inventor of dynamite Nobel was a complex personality, which puzzled his contemporaries. Although business interests demanded from him almost constant travel, he remained a solitary hermit who was prone to bouts of depression. Alfred led a solitary and simple life, he was a man of ascetic habits, but he could be a polite host, a good listener, and a man of discerning mind.

The inventor of dynamite was never married, and, apparently, preferred the joy of creativity to romantic attachments. He had an enduring interest in literature, he wrote plays, novels and poems, almost completely unpublished. He had amazing energy, and it was not easy for him to relax after intensive work. Among his contemporaries he enjoyed the reputation of a liberal or even a socialist, but in fact he did not trust democracy, was against the suffrage for women and maintained soft paternalism towards his numerous employees. Although the Swedish inventor of dynamite, in fact, was a pacifist and expressed the hope that the destructive power of his creations would help to end the war, his view of humanity and peoples was pessimistic.

Testament-surprise

By 1895, Alfred developed angina, and on December 10 of the following year he died of a brain hemorrhage at his own villa in San Remo (Italy). By this time Nobel's business empire consisted of more than 90 factories producing explosives and ammunition. His will, drawn up in Paris on November 27, 1895 and deposited with a bank in Stockholm, contained a great surprise for his family, friends and the general public. The dynamite inventor has always been generous to humanitarian and scientific charitable institutions and left most of the fortune in trust to establish the most highly appreciated international award, the Nobel Prize.

Death of the Death Dealer

One can only guess at the reasons for this decision. He was secretive and did not tell anyone about any of his decisions all the months that preceded his death. The most plausible is the assumption that the strange incident that occurred in 1888 may have triggered a chain of reflections that led to his will. In the same year, Alfred's brother Ludwig died while in Cannes, France. The French press reported the death of her brother, but confused him with Alfred, and one of the newspapers came out with the title "Death Merchant Dead." Perhaps the inventor of dynamite has established prizes to avoid just such a posthumous reputation, expressed by this premature obituary. Obviously, the established awards reflect his interest in the field of chemistry, physics, physiology and literature. There is also ample evidence that his friendship with the outstanding Austrian pacifist Bertha von Suttner inspired him to create a peace prize.

Nobel himself, however, remains a figure full of paradoxes and contradictions: a brilliant lonely man, partly a pessimist and partly an idealist who invented the powerful explosives used in modern warfare, and established the most prestigious awards in the world for the intellectual services rendered to mankind.