Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Group Members:
Haezell Alison Claudius
Leong Pui Ling
Nicole Cheong
Samantha Jiayi
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on the 21st of October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was a chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer and last but certainly not least, he was the inventor of dynamite. His last will used a large amount of wealth for the Nobel Prize institutions.
After the bankruptcy in Alfred's family business, he returned to Sweden with his father. He devoted himself to studying explosives, especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin. A large explosion occurred on 3 September 1864 at their factory in Heleneborg in Stockholm, killing five people, among them Alfred's brother Emil. Nobel continues on his experiments and soon form a company called Nitroglycerin AB in Stockholm, Sweden. He tries to make nitroglycerin safer to handle and finds it is safer by adding kieselguhr. This was called dynamite. Nobel establishes the British Dynamite Company which changed to Nobel's Explosives Company.
Nobel was a wealthy man at the age of 40.
Nobel Prize was placed in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his will requirements, leaving most of his wealth for its establishment. Since 1901, the prize has been appreciating men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace to the world.
It is said Alfred Nobel never got married but had three lovers. The first love was a Russian girl named Alexandra who rejected his proposal. In 1876, Nobel had a secretary named Bertha Kinsky who left him to marry her old sweetheart, Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. However, she was still contacting him until his death. It is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize. Bertha Von Suttner was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize, for her sincere peace activities. Nobel's long-lasting relationship with his third lover was with a flower girl named Sofie Hess from Vienna. This relationship lasted 18 years. They exchanged letters throughout their relationship. Nobel called her Madame Sofie Nobel in those letters. After his death, these letters were locked within the Nobel Institute in Stockholm and became the best kept secret at that time. They were released in 1955.
Although, Alfred Nobel did not get formal education, he knew six languages Swedish, French, Russian, English, German and Italian. He was also really good in English Literature. Beatrice Cenci, his book was printed while he was dying. Most of the contents were destroyed immediately after his death.
Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.
Alfred Nobel died at the age of 63 on 10th December 1896. He died in Sanremo, Italy where he had a stroke that caused him his life. He was a man that tried to make up for his mistakes although he was constantly condemned.
In our humble opinion, Alfred Nobel was just an assignment that had to be done initially. However, after all the research we found out that Alfred Nobel wanted to prove something to the world.
- Alfred Nobel became wealthy by creating explosives that were used in wars. These explosives killed many lives and so he felt a great deal of it was his fault. According to the research we made, he tried making things better by creating the Nobel Peace Prize to reward those who contribute to world peace. However, in our opinion after reading many articles, we feel Bertha von Suttner was the main reason the Nobel Peace Prize was created. We believe she persuaded him to create the Nobel Peace Prize to make up for his mistakes.
- In conclusion, we chose Alfred Nobel because we want to show how some people try to prove something when they are at a lower rank. The bad part is they might not always do the right thing. Most importantly, people should know that money is not everything. There is more to life than being wealthy.
Alfred Nobel's will
Pictures of Alfred Nobel
Pictures of Bertha von Suttner, the women who left Nobel to marry her old sweetheart. She is also the first woman awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
Ragnar Sohlman was Alfred Nobel's personal assistant. After Nobel's death, Sohlman played a vital role in carrying out his will.
References for the Text
- http://www.snopes.com/science/nobel.asp.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel
- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416842/Alfred-Bernhard-Nobel
- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998209,00.html
- http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/index.html
References for the Pictures
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Nobel_%28Bain%29.png
- http://www.nndb.com/people/753/000024681/
- http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/index.html
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Nobel.jpeg
- http://edhird.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/alfred-nobellord-of-dynamite-servant-of-peace/
- http://mrullom.pbworks.com/Archives
- http://www.obit-mag.com/articles/greatly-exaggerated
- http://www.provincia.imperia.it/villanobel/VersioneInglese/Nobel.htm
- http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/webpics/alfred_nobel.jpg
- http://www.suttnerschule-koeln.de/namensgeberin/biographie.html
- http://school.familyeducation.com/slideshow/award-winners/61485.html
- http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/I/suttnpor
- http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1905/suttner-bio.html
- http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/alfred-nobel/financial-assets/
No comments:
Post a Comment