...in 1827. The couple had eight children, of hom only Alfred and three brothers reached adulthood. Alfred as prone to illness as a child, but he enjoyed a close relationship ith his mother and displayed a lively intellectual curiosity from an early age. He as interested in explosives, and he learned the fundamentals of engineering from his father. Immanuel, meanhile, had failed at various business ventures until moving in 1837 to St. Petersburg in Russia, here he prospered as a manufacturer of explosive mines and machine tools. The Nobel family left Stockholm in 1842 to join the father in St. Petersburg. Alfreds nely prosperous parents ere no able to send him to private tutors, and he proved to be an eager pupil. He as a competent chemist by age 16 and as fluent in English, French, German, and Russian, as ell as Sedish. Alfred Nobel left Russia in 1850 to spend a year in Paris studying chemistry and then spent four years in the United States orking under the direction of John Ericsson, the builder of the ironclad arship Monitor. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Nobel orked in his fathers factory, hich made military equipment during the Crimean ar. After the ar ended in 1856, the company had difficulty sitching to the peacetime production of steamboat machinery, and it ent bankrupt in 1859.Alfred and his parents returned to Seden, hile his brothers Robert and Ludvig stayed behind in Russia to salvage hat as left of the family business. Alfred soon began experimenting ith explosives in a small laboratory on his fathers estate. At the time, the only dependable explosive for use in mines as black poder, a form of gunpoder. A recently discovered liquid compound, nitroglycerin, as a much more poerful explosive, but it as so volatile that it could not be handled ith any degree of safety. Nevertheless, Nobel in 1862 built a small factory to manufacture nitroglycerin, and at the same time he undertook research in the hope of finding a safe ay to control the explosives detonation. In 1863 he invented a practical detonator consisting of a ooden plug inserted into a larger charge of nitroglycerin held in a metal container the explosion of the plugs small charge of black poder serves to detonate the much more poerful charge of liquid nitroglycerin. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobels reputation as an inventor as ell as the fortune he as to acquire as a maker of explosives. In 1865 Nobel invented an improved detonator called a blasting cap it consisted of a small metal cap containing a charge of mercury fulminate that can be exploded by either shock or moderate heat. The invention of the blasting cap inaugurated the modern use of high explosives.Nitroglycerin itself, hoever, remained difficult to transport and extremely dangerous to handle. So dangerous, in fact, that Nobels nitroglycerin factory ble up in 1864, killing his younger brother Emil and several other people. Undaunted by this tragic accident, Nobel built several factories to manufacture nitroglycerin for use in concert ith his blasting caps. These factories ere as safe as the knoledge of the time alloed, but accidental explosions still occasionally occurred. Nobels second important invention as that of dynamite in 1867. By chance, he discovered that nitroglycerin as absorbed to dryness by kieselguhr, a porous siliceous earth, and the resulting mixture as much safer to use and easier to handle than nitroglycerin alone. Nobel named the ne product dynamite from Greek dynamis, poer and as granted patents for it in Great Britain 1867 and the United States 1868. Dynamite established Nobels fame orldide and as soon put to use in blasting tunnels, cutting canals, building railays and roads. In the 1870s and 80s Nobel built a netork of factories throughout Europe to manufacture dynamite, and he formed a eb of corporations to produce and market his explosives. He also continued to experiment in search of better ones, and in 1875 he invented a more poerful form of dynamite, blasting gelatin, hich he patented the folloing year. Again by chance, he had discovered that mixing a solution of nitroglycerin ith a fluffy substance knon as nitrocellulose results in a tough, plastic material that has a high ater resistance and greater blasting poer than ordinary dynamites. In 1887 Nobel introduced ballistite, one of the first nitroglycerin smokeless poders and a precursor of cordite. Although Nobel held the patents to dynamite and his other explosives, he as in constant conflict ith competitors ho stole his processes, a fact that forced him into protracted patent litigation on several occasions. Nobels brothers Ludig and Robert, in the meantime, had developed nely discovered oilfields near Baku no in Azerbaijan along the Caspian Sea and had themselves become immensely ealthy. Alfreds orldide interests in explosives, along ith his on holdings in his brothers companies in Russia, brought him a large fortune. In 1893 he became interested in Sedens arms industry, and the folloing year he bought an ironorks at Bofors, near Varmland, that became the nucleus of the ell-knon Bofors arms factory. Besides explosives, Nobel made many other inventions, such as artificial silk and leather, and altogether he registered more than 350 patents in various countries.Nobels complex personality puzzled his contemporaries. Although his business interests required him to travel almost constantly, he remained a lonely recluse ho as prone to fits of depression. He led a retired and simple life and as a man of ascetic habits, yet he could be a courteous dinner host, a good listener, and a man of incisive it. He never married, and apparently preferred the joys of inventing to those of romantic attachment. He had an abiding interest in literature and rote plays, novels, and poems, almost all of hich remained unpublished. He had amazing energy and found it difficult to relax after intense bouts of ork. Among his contemporaries, he had the reputation of a liberal or even a socialist, but he actually distrusted democracy, opposed suffrage for omen, and maintained an attitude of benign paternalism toard his many employees. Though Nobel as essentially a pacifist and hoped that the destructive poers of his inventions ould help bring an end to ar, his vie of mankind and nations as pessimistic.By 1895 Nobel had developed angina pectoris, and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his villa in San Remo, Italy, in 1896. At his death his orldide business empire consisted of more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition. The opening of his ill, hich he had dran up in Paris on Nov. 27, 1895, and had deposited in a bank in Stockholm, contained a great surprise for his family, friends, and the general public. He had alays been generous in humanitarian and scientific philanthropies, and he left the bulk of his fortune in trust to establish hat came to be the most highly regarded of international aards, the Nobel P...
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