Alfred Nobel - Life and Philosophy
A memorial address by Tore
Frängsmyr
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
26 March 1996
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
26 March 1996
Probably no Swede is as well-known
throughout the world as Alfred Nobel - not our medieval saints,
nor even our contemporary sports heroes. At the same time, we
must admit that his renown is more indirect than direct. This
means that while the Nobel Prize is extremely well-known all over
the world, the person behind it remains relatively unknown.
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Admittedly, quite a lot has been written
about Alfred Nobel, but a large part of this literature consists
of clichés. It is often a question of sentimental depictions
of a lonely millionaire who - despite his wealth - was unhappy or
at least deeply melancholic, emotionally attached to his mother,
and with a few heart-rending love stories behind him. This is not
altogether a false picture. Alfred Nobel was lonely and he was
clearly unlucky in love, but such accounts are not so
instructive. Romantic tales constitute a special genre, to which
I shall not attempt to contribute. Instead, I will focus on the
scientific and technical fields.
First, however, I would like to recount some important facts
about Alfred Nobel's life. He was born
in Stockholm in 1833 into a family of engineers. His family
was descended from none other than Olof Rudbeck, the best-known
technical genius of Sweden's 17th century era as a Great Power in
Northern Europe. Having gone through a recent bankruptcy, when
Alfred was five years old his father Immanuel Nobel moved to St.
Petersburg, where he started a mechanical workshop for the
manufacture of land mines. In 1842, when Alfred was nine years
old, the rest of the family also moved to St. Petersburg. By then his father's
fortunes had improved, enabling the family to live in high
bourgeois style. At the time, St. Petersburg was a world
metropolis, alive with scientific, social, and cultural life.
Immanuel Nobel's sons did not attend school, but were instead
educated at home by outstanding teachers at the level of
university professor. The instruction they provided focused on
both the humanities and the natural sciences. Aside from Swedish,
Alfred and his brothers were taught Russian, French, English and
German, as well as literature and philosophy. In the natural
sciences, they were guided by two professors of chemistry who
taught them mathematics, physics and chemistry. Considering the
specialty of his teachers, it was perhaps no coincidence that
Alfred took a liking to chemistry. He learned to conduct chemical
experiments, an activity that seemed to fascinate him from the
very beginning. Alfred spent his most important formative years
in the Russian capital. With his five languages, which he seemed
to have mastered well, he laid the foundation for the
cosmopolitan nature that would later become so prominent in his
life.
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| Nevskij Prospekt, the main street of St. Petersburg, in the 1870s. |
During the years 1850-52, Alfred was allowed a few study-oriented
stays abroad. He spent one year in Paris with the famous chemist
Jules Pelouze, a professor at the Collège de France who had
just opened a private training laboratory. Pelouze, who
incidentally had been a good friend of the Swedish chemist
Berzelius, had also taught Nikolai Zinin, one of Alfred Nobel's
private teachers. During that year, Alfred completed his training
as a chemist. But somewhere around the same time was the
inception of what would become the greatest inventions of his
life. For it was then, if not earlier, that he must have heard
about the remarkable explosive called nitroglycerine. Strangely
enough, this has not been pointed out by many scholars, who have
dated the crucial moment 10 years later.
Here is the background. In 1847, in Turin, Ascanio Sobrero - an Italian
student of Pelouze - had discovered a new explosive that he
initially called pyroglycerine (later known as nitroglycerine).
However, Sobrero, both in letters to Pelouze and in a subsequent
journal article, issued a warning about the new compound, not
only because it had incredible explosive power, but also because
it was impossible to handle. Sobrero's discovery did not come as
a bolt from the blue. As early as the 1830s, Pelouze himself and
others had conducted important preliminary work by making
guncotton. Since Alfred was extremely interested in explosives -
it was of course a family interest - and since Pelouze had both
first-hand knowledge of how explosives were manufactured and was
familiar with Sobrero's discovery, Alfred must have learned about
nitroglycerine at that time. However, any excitement he might
have felt was immediately dampened by the difficulties of both
manufacturing and handling the new compound.
The end of the Crimean War (1856) spelled disaster for Immanuel
Nobel's factory, which had lived off the manufacture of war
materiel. The factory went bankrupt, and Alfred's parents and
their youngest son Emil moved back to Sweden. The three older
sons stayed in St. Petersburg to put the family affairs in order
and restructure the company. Faced with this situation, Alfred
and his brothers discussed various conceivable projects with
their former teachers. That was when Nikolai Zinin reminded them
of the potential of nitroglycerine. Professor Zinin is said to
have demonstrated the power of nitroglycerine by pouring a few
drops of the fluid on an anvil, striking it with a hammer, and
producing a loud bang. But only the liquid that came into contact
with the hammer exploded. The rest of the liquid was not
affected. The problem, as Sobrero had already realized, was
two-fold. First, it was difficult to manufacture the compound,
because at excessive temperatures the whole batch exploded.
Second, once manufactured, the liquid was equally difficult to
explode in a controlled fashion.
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| Nobel monument "Blown up Tree" on the bank of the River Neva, St. Petersburg. |
During the years around 1860, Alfred
conducted repeated experiments involving great risks. First, he
succeeded in manufacturing sufficient quantities of
nitroglycerine without any mishaps. Then, he mixed nitroglycerine
with black gunpowder and ignited the mixture with an ordinary
fuse. After several successful explosions outside St. Petersburg
on the frozen Neva River, Alfred traveled back to Stockholm.
There, his father had begun similar experiments (though with less
success) after reading about Alfred's tests in his letters.
Immanuel Nobel even insisted that the new mixture was his own
idea, but he backed off from this assertion after a sharp letter
from Alfred that set matters straight in no uncertain terms.
Instead, he even helped Alfred apply for a patent in his own
name. In October 1863, Alfred Nobel was granted a patent for the
explosive that he aptly called "blasting oil."
With his first patent, Alfred had also
reached his first milestone. Although he was only 30 years old,
this was the start of an exciting adventure that would unfold
with great speed. During the following spring and summer, Alfred
continued his experiments. He soon obtained a new patent related
to the manufacture of nitroglycerine (using a simplified method)
as well as the use of a detonator, or what was called an "initial
igniter," in other words a hollow wooden plug filled with black
gunpowder (later called a "blasting cap"). The determination and
self-confidence that would later become more pronounced features
of Alfred's personality were already apparent. He wrote: "I am
the first to have brought these subjects from the area of science
to that of industry," and he successfully arranged a large loan
from a French bank.
* * *
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| The Söder tunnel in Stockholm was built with help of Alfred Nobel's blasting oil. |
Around the same time, another personality
trait began to assert itself - the inventor also became an
entrepreneur. Alfred dealt with failures in the same resolute
manner as he did successes. In September 1864, a major explosion
at the Nobel
factory in Stockholm claimed the lives of Alfred's brother
Emil and four other people. Just one month later, Alfred -
resolutely and without sentimentality - founded his first joint
stock company. Despite the accident or perhaps because of it,
since no one could now doubt the explosive power of the new
compound, orders began rolling in. The Swedish State Railways
ordered blasting oil for use in building the Söder Tunnel in
Stockholm. A year later, in 1865, Alfred improved his blasting
cap (now made of metal rather than wood) which in principle is
still of the same type used today. He then left for Germany, set
up a company there and bought land outside Hamburg where
he built a factory. In the summer of 1866, Alfred Nobel traveled
to America. There he struggled against political bureaucracy,
popular fear of accidents caused by explosives and, not least,
dishonest business associates. In the end, he received patents,
formed companies and built factories there.
Despite slow communications, everything now happened very
quickly. Events literally assumed explosive force. While Alfred
was in America, his factory in Germany exploded. When he returned
to Germany in August, he had to supervise the clean-up of the
debris and plan a new building. At the same time, he continued to
brood over the safety problems of nitroglycerine and he conducted
new experiments. He realized that nitroglycerine had to be
absorbed by some kind of porous material, forming a mixture that
would be easier to handle. On the German moorlands very close to
where he was staying, he found a type of porous, absorbent sand
or diatomaceous earth known in German as Kieselguhr.
When nitroglycerine was absorbed by Kieselguhr, it formed
a paste that was easy to knead and shape. This paste could be
shaped into rods that were easily inserted into drilling holes.
It could also be transported and subjected to jolts without
triggering explosions. It could even be ignited without anything
happening. Only a blasting cap would cause the paste to explode.
The disadvantage of this new substance was its somewhat reduced
explosive force - the Kieselguhr did not participate as an
active substance in the explosion. But this was the price one had
to pay. In short, that was how Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. Incidentally, Alfred
himself coined the word dynamite from the Greek dynamis,
meaning power. One of his German colleagues had proposed the term
"blasting putty" because it had the same consistency as putty.
But Alfred thought this sounded like something meant to be used
for blasting window panes, which was certainly not his intention.
In 1867, he was granted patents for dynamite in various
countries, notably Britain, Sweden and the United States.
Production was now set to begin on a large scale, and demand grew
rapidly. It was an era of large infrastructure projects like
railways, ports, bridges, roads, mines and tunnels, where
blasting was necessary. For example, dynamite was of vital
importance in the construction of the St. Gotthard tunnel through
the Swiss Alps in the 1870s.
In 1868, the year after the first patent for dynamite, Alfred
Nobel and his father were awarded the Letterstedt Prize by the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. This prize, which Alfred
valued highly, was awarded for "important discoveries of
practical value to humanity." We can hear an echo of this wording
in Nobel's will, where he stated the criteria for awarding his
own prizes.
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| Alfred Nobel's traveling bag. |
He had taken the decisive steps that led to
honor and fame. Let us pause a moment at the year 1873, when
Alfred Nobel was 40 years old. All these events had taken place
during the preceding 10 years. At age 30, Alfred had received his
first patent. Now, by age 40, he had already made his greatest
discoveries, he had built up a worldwide industrial empire, he
had become wealthy, and he had bought a large house in the center of Paris.
The foundation was in place. He later made new discoveries -
primarily blasting gelatin and ballistite - and his industrial
enterprises, as well as his fortune, grew. His distinguishing
quality was his versatility. He was an inventor, an industrialist
and an administrator. He had to safeguard his patent rights,
develop products, establish new companies, and conduct business
in five languages with the rest of the world - without the help
of a secretary and before the telephone and fax made people's
lives easier. He frequently traveled by train or boat, since this
was before the advent of the airplane. His factories exploded, he
had to withstand negative publicity campaigns, and he unmasked
deceitful business partners. He had to deal with all of this
himself. In addition, he seldom felt well - he viewed himself as
sickly and frail, often complaining of migraines, rheumatism and
an unsettled stomach. His life was hectic and stressful. In
letters he wrote from Paris, he complained of being constantly
hounded by people, which he described in his own words as "pure
torture." People are crazy, he wrote - they rushed in and out of
his office, everyone wanted to see him, and his presence was
required everywhere. But despite everything, he managed to cope.
In the role of the entrepreneur, he was unbeatable.
* * *
I would like to touch upon another
level of Alfred Nobel's personality, that of the humanist and
philosopher. We know that he had literary interests and ambitions.
He was an avid reader of fiction and wrote his own
dramatic works and poems. In addition, he was attracted to
philosophical issues. He read certain
philosophical works with such interest that he underlined
important passages. Among the papers that he left behind is a
black notebook on philosophy that his biographers have not taken
an interest in. Although not constituting profound original
thoughts, these penciled notes reflect his serious interest in
philosophical questions. Nobel went through philosophy from
antiquity to modern times, pointing out what he perceived to be
vital issues. He made his own comments, which in a morose way
showed his detachment from the subject. He commented on Plato,
Aristotle and Democritus, but also on Newton and Voltaire as well
as contemporary biologists such as Darwin and Haeckel. Nobel
noted, for example, that it was unclear what caused people to
form a conception of a God: "Aristotle attributes it to fear,
Voltaire to the desire of the more clever to deceive the stupid."
He spoke with respect of the philosophical doubts of Descartes
and Spinoza, adding that doubt must surely be the starting point
for all philosophical thinking. Theories of knowledge were of
special interest to Nobel. Consequently, he returned several
times to Locke's thesis that all knowledge arises from sensory
impressions, declaring that the "brain is a very unreliable
recorder of impressions."
This led him to reflect further on the methodology of science and
to develop a line of reasoning that, aside from being inspired by
Locke's thesis, also seemed to have been influenced by Alexander
von Humboldt's theory of knowledge. Nobel wrote that all science
is built on observations of similarities and differences. He
continued:
"A chemical analysis is of course nothing other than this, and
even mathematics has no other foundation. History is a picture of
past similarities and differences; geography shows the
differences in the earth's surface; geology, similarities and
differences in the earth's formation, from which we deduce the
course of its transformations. Astronomy is the study of
similarities and differences between celestial bodies; physics, a
study of similarities and differences that arise from the
attraction and motive functions of matter. The only exception to
this rule is religious doctrine, but even this rests on the
similar gullibility of most people. Even metaphysics - if it is
not too insane - must find support for its hypotheses in some
kind of analogy. One can state, without exaggeration, that the
observation of and the search for similarities and differences
are the basis of all human knowledge."
Nobel could have completed this train of thought with Humboldt's
words that "from observation one goes on to
experimentation....based on analogies and inductions of empirical
laws." Nobel did not espouse any grand theory of knowledge, but
rather an empirical method. Alfred Nobel himself seemed to think
that he had accomplished quite a lot by applying this method in
his work.
Alfred Nobel also viewed himself with detachment, or shall we
say, philosophical skepticism. He often described himself as a
loner, hermit, melancholic or misanthrope. He once wrote: "I am a
misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw
loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more
efficiently than food." Even from this description, it is clear
that this misanthrope was also a philanthropist, or what Nobel
called a super-idealist. It was the idealist in him that drove
Nobel to bequeath his fortune to those who had benefited humanity
through science, literature and efforts to promote peace.
* * *
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| Villa Nobel in San Remo, Italy. |
For Alfred Nobel, the idea of giving away
his fortune was no passing fancy. He had thought about it for a
long time and had even re-written his will on various occasions in order to
weigh different wordings against each other. Efforts to promote
peace were close to his heart, largely inspired by his contacts
with Bertha von Suttner
(herself a Nobel Peace
Prize winner in 1905). He derived intellectual pleasure from
literature, while science built the foundation for his own
activities as a technological researcher and inventor. On
November 27, 1895, Nobel signed his final will and testament at
the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris.
Alfred Nobel had many different homes during the final decades of
his life. In 1891, he had left Paris to live in San Remo, Italy,
after controversies with the French authorities. Four years
later, he purchased the Bofors ironworks and armaments factory in
Sweden and established his Swedish home at nearby Björkborn
Manor. He equipped all his residences with laboratories where
he could continue his experiments. He was apparently homesick for
Sweden but complained of the Swedish winter weather. His health
began to falter. He visited doctors and health resorts more
frequently, but never had time to heed their most important
advice - "to rest and nurse my health," as he put it himself. On
December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel passed away at his home in San
Remo.
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| The first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was held in 1901 at the Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm. |
Nobel's will was hardly longer than one ordinary page.
After listing bequests to relatives and other people close to him,
Nobel declared that his entire remaining estate should be used to
endow "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have
conferred the greatest benefit to mankind." His will attracted
attention throughout the world. It was unusual at that time to
donate large sums of money for scientific and charitable
purposes. Many people also criticized the international character
of the prizes, saying they should be restricted to Swedes. This
would not have suited the cosmopolitan Alfred Nobel. Some of his
relatives contested the will. Complicated legal and
administrative matters also had to be sorted out. All this took
time, but eventually it was all settled.
In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The donor himself
could hardly have dreamed of the impact that his benevolence
would have in the future.
* * *
The commemorative medal that has been
struck for this occasion -- designed by the artist Rune Karlzon
-- is intended to remind us of some of Alfred Nobel's various
activities. The back of the medal shows a tunnel blasted by
dynamite and a detonator or blasting cap. On the front of the
medal is a portrait of Nobel, with the Latin inscription
Creavit et promovit, which can be translated "He created
and promoted." This sums up, in the briefest possible way, the
remarkable accomplishments of Alfred Nobel.
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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences'
commemorative medal in honor of Alfred Nobel and his
work.Photos - The Nobel Family's Home in Stockholm, Sweden
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