Alfred Nobel :: essays research papers

The inventor of dynamite was a very important roll to take part in. The ultimate inventor of it was a mane named Alfred Nobel. Before dynamite, miners had to use nitrogen to blow holes in rock and other things. However it is too volatile and can explode incredibly easily. Alfred changed all this.   Alfred Nobel was born on October 21st 1833 in Stockholm. He studied their until1842 when his family moved to St. Petersburg in Russia. Since his father was an influential inventor and industrialist the family moved from country to country. Alfred gained the fluency in 5 different languages, Swedish, Russian, English, French, and German, but was always proud of his Swedish Background. In his teens his father sent him to learn chemistry in France. He gained interest in explosive nitroglycerin. And studied until he founded the first ever nitroglycerin factory in the world, but found it was too volatile to work with, and too many miners were dying using it. He began experimenting on how to control the substance. He wanted something that could absorb the nitroglycerin and not still have the same power. He Found that a substance called Kieselguhr. This substance consisted of (diatomeus earth) marine organisms diatoms. This way the explosive could be transported easily and detonated from a safe distance. It saved laves and time. He would name it Dynamite and got a patent for it in 1867. Throughout his life he had poor health but was not worried about it because he expected many advances in medicine. He once experimented with his theories on blood transfusions. These attempts failed and was back on with his chemistry. From an early age Alfred had written and read quite a bit and he had very good writing skills. He wrote many poems and even a play or two only to destroy almost all of them. By his death in 1896 he had established companies in some ninety locations in twenty countries and earned over SEK 31.5 million. His will was made by himself with no legal help because he learned in the past not to like or trust lawyers. Almost all of his money was to be divided into five equal parts and distributed "in the form or prizes to those who during the preceding year have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.