Alfred Nobel

Inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes

Dynamite's invention and the use of his wealth to create the Nobel Prizes are what Nobel is most famous for.^[1]

Quick Facts

Birth name

Alfred Bernhard Nobel

Born

21 October 1833

Birthplace

Stockholm, Sweden

Died

10 December 1896

Place of death

Sanremo, Italy

Resting place

Norra begravningsplatsen, Solna, Sweden

Monuments

Nobel Monument; New York City, U.S.

Occupation

Chemist
Engineer
Inventor
Businessman

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

In 1842, the family joined him, and Nobel was sent to private tutors, excelling in chemistry and languages.^[2] Immanuel Nobel, an inventor and engineer, and Andriette Nobel were the parents of Alfred Nobel, who was their third son.^[3] Only Alfred and three of his brothers lived past childhood, as the family experienced poverty.^[4] In his youth, Nobel studied under chemist Nikolai Zinin and then traveled to Paris in 1850 to continue his work.^[5]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences elected Nobel as a member in 1884, and Uppsala University granted him an honorary doctorate in 1893.^[6] Throughout his life, Nobel obtained 355 patents internationally, and by the time of his death, his enterprises had founded over 90 factories for explosives and armaments.^[6]

What the cited sources add

The same source states that his home education ended in 1850, and the following years he devoted himself partly to writing.^[7] The BBC account reports that Nobel's father sent him abroad in 1850 to study chemical engineering, and during a two-year period Nobel visited Sweden, Germany, France and the United States.^[8] The Nobel Prize account of Alfred Nobel's life and work states that at age 17, Alfred could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German.^[9] The same source notes that after the Nobel family's return to Sweden in 1863, Alfred concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive, and these experiments resulted in accidents that killed several people, including his younger brother Emil.^[9]

The Le Monde article by Henderson reports that Peter Nobel, Alfred Nobel's heir, stated that Alfred had never mentioned a prize in economics in any of his letters.^[10]

References

Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Golden, "The Worst and the Brightest", 16 October 2000 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alfred Nobel – his life and work", Nobel Prize, 3 September 2015; "The Week in Preview: Alfred Nobel's father, Immanuel, invented a rotary lathe that became the key to manufacturing modern plywood.", The Telegraph, 9 July 2012; "Ten Mining Campaigns That Shaped Mine Warfare", United States Naval Institute, 2 June 2016; "Alfred Nobel", Nationalencyklopedin, 1 July 2020; "Alfred Nobel"; "Nobel, Alfred", Encyclopedia.com; "Alfred Nobel – St. Petersburg, 1842–1863", Nobel Prize, 5 December 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alfred Nobel"; "Alfred Nobel's life and work", Nobel Prize, 13 March 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alfred Nobel"; Lim, "Biography of Alfred Nobel, Inventor of Dynamite", Dotdash Meredith, 27 April 2020 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alfred B Nobel – Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon", sok.riksarkivet.se (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia, "Alfred Nobel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Alfred Nobel"; "Alfred Nobel (1833–1896)", BBC News (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
"Alfred B Nobel – Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon", sok.riksarkivet.se. facts only, no text reused. sok.riksarkivet.se
"Alfred Nobel (1833–1896)", BBC News. facts only, no text reused. bbc.co.uk
"Alfred Nobel's life and work", Nobel Prize, 13 March 2015. facts only, no text reused. nobelprize.org
Henderson, "The 'Nobel prize' that isn't", Le Monde, February 2005. facts only, no text reused. mondediplo.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Alfred Nobel (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.