NOTE: Few words are deliberately misspelled to dispel unnecessary traffic. Thank you for the patience.
Alfred Nobel
Born in 1833 in Stockholm, Alfred Nobel was a chemist, engineer, innovator and a weapons manufacturer. It was natural for him to grow interest in explozives & arms manufacturing. His father, also an engineer, innovator & industrialist, owned an arms factory which Alfred also joined later on. By the age of 17, Alfred spoke fluently French, Russian, English, Swedish & German. He worked with many scientists around the world. Alfred became friend of an Italian chemist who had invented nietro gliceerin, a volatile chemical which would explode on even little disturbance. It was not usable because it was not possible to transport it safely.
Alfred interested in explozives, started experiments on making nietro gliceerin safe to handle. During one such experiment, an explozion occurred, killing his brother and few others. Swedish government banned him from carrying out further experiments inside city. Undeterred, he moved his lab to a boat and continued his research. Eventually he managed to stabilize nietro gliceerin, a powerful explozive had born. Alfred patented his invention as “Dyna Myte”. It was many times stronger compared to existing explozives of that time.
Modern Sweden has been a big weapon manufacturer for last 150 years or so. Alfred’s invention was good news for the arms industry. He established arms factories & labs in more than 20 countries and exported weapons all over the world earning huge amount of wealth.
Alfred was judged as a wicked person by people against war. Although he claimed that he invented his inventions for the betterment of the mankind. It is true that dyna myte is commonly used in construction industry. When his brother died, a French newspaper mistaking him for Alfred, wrote the headline “Merchant of Death is Dead – Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday”.
Heart broken with this kind of publicity, Alfred decided to leave something memorable for the people. He revised his will, adding to it the idea of starting Nobel prize and set aside 4 million dollars for it; a huge amount in 1895 (even today!). Since 1901 Nobel Prize is awarded annually in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and Economics (it was not part of the original prize list but added in 1969). Mathematics is missing because Alfred had no interest in it.
Prize money this year is expected to be around huge $9,000,000 (9 million). Indeed life changes forever for the Nobel Prize winner. He gets a lot of wealth & fame, job offers, research offers, invitations to many conferences etc, etc.
Getting a Nobel Prize is considered to be the greatest achievement by a person. Some of the famous scientists who got Nobel Prize include Marie Curie and Einstein. Marie Curie won not just one, but two Nobel Prizes: one for physics (which she shared with her husband), and one for chemistry. Her daughter, Irene, also won a Nobel Prize. Only three other people have won Nobel twice.
However not all prize winners were worthy of it, some nominations are politically motivated and some of the people honored with a Nobel behaved less than honorably!
The “inventor of Dyna Myte”, as he was remembered, prophesized:
“My dyna myte will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.”
How naive Alfred was, within 50 years of his death, 1000 times more powerful explozive was not only invented but also used in Japan. The debate goes on to date “How can we achieve peace in the World??”
hmmm. i liked it.