The extraordinary life of Alfred Nobel

The Nobel prizes may be one of the most famous and prestigious awards in the world – but who was the man behind them? As I explain in my lectures about Alfred Nobel, the inventor and entrepreneur has left a lasting legacy with the annual prizes he established in 1901 for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace (the Nobel prize for economic sciences was established much later, in 1968).

But life wasn’t always so illustrious for Alfred Nobel.

According to Ingrid Carlberg’s biography of Nobel, he had a tough childhood in Stockholm. Not only was he poor but the boy who would become an esteemed scientist – holding 355 patents in his lifetime – was placed in a class for children with learning difficulties at school. Innovation may have run in the Nobel blood, however. Alfred’s father, Immanuel, was also an inventor, albeit less successful than his son would become.

Among Immanuel’s early creations was a backpack made from foul-smelling rubber that could also serve as a floating device for soldiers who needed to cross a river – and as a pillow on which to sit comfortably. But Immanuel’s inventions racked up huge debts and he fled from his creditors to Saint Petersburg in Russia – a place that would play an important role in his son Alfred’s later life.

Things improved for Alfred when the Nobel family moved to Russia, where he began working on developing explosives.

Explosive interests

Unfortunately, in Russia, Immanuel faced bankruptcy once again and returned to Sweden. Alfred and his father, alongside the Nobel family’s youngest son Emil, experimented with nitroglycerin in Stockholm.

The findings of these experiments made momentous contributions to industrialisation and medicine. However, there were many tragic events before Alfred found a way to make nitroglycerin safer to use by inventing dynamite in 1867.

In 1864, for example, Alfred’s younger brother Emil was killed in a nitroglycerin explosion at the family laboratory near Stockholm – after which the manufacture of nitroglycerin was banned in the city.

But this family tragedy didn’t distract Alfred from his goal. He continued to manufacture explosives – now at an industrial scale – at a factory in Vinterviken, Sweden. That factory was destroyed several times in accidents caused by the instability of nitroglycerin – killing numerous workers.

Although Nobel’s factory was undoubtedly a dangerous place to work, it also helped uncover the benefits of nitroglycerin as a cardiac drug.

Factory workers experienced changes to their health from exposure to nitroglycerin. The chemical has substantial physiological effects as a vasodilator that relaxes blood vessels to increase blood flow and oxygen to the heart.

In 1998, The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 1998 was awarded jointly to Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system”. This may have surprised Alfred Nobel, who reportedly refused to take nitroglycerin when doctors prescribed it for his angina attacks.

From Nobel’s work followed the prizes in chemistry and physics, but more surprising – given Nobel’s significant contribution to the development of weapons of warfare – is the peace prize.

One of Nobel’s closest friends was pacifist Bertha von Suttner, who wrote the bestselling anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms. It is believed that she wanted Alfred Nobel to donate his money to the peace movement, but Alfred chose to fund a prize instead. In 1905, von Suttner became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize and the second female Nobel laureate, after Marie Curie.

Courting controversy

Several aspects of the prizes were highly controversial.

That women could receive the prizes was seen as a folly, not to mention that the Nobel peace prize would be delivered by a committee in Norway. But to Alfred, Oslo must have been seen as a natural place for one of the prizes. At the time of Alfred’s death, Sweden and Norway were in a union, and Alfred spent a lot of time hanging out with friends at the Swedish-Norwegian Association in Paris.

Swedes were upset that the prizes could be awarded to anyone, and were not limited to Swedish citizens. In the 19th century, most prizes were national, but Alfred must have been an internationalist. He spent his childhood in Sweden, his formative years in Russia, most of his later life in France and had a vacation home in San Remo, Italy. The authorities in San Remo continue to send flowers to decorate the annual Nobel prize award ceremony and banquet in Stockholm each year.

However, the fiercest attack against the Nobel prizes did not come from Swedish nationalists, but from Nobel’s own family who was disowned of their inheritance after Alfred’s death. The family noticed that there were several wills – and they received less and less money with each will – until the final version, which left the largest amount to the prizes.

One cannot overestimate the importance of Alfred Nobel’s assistant and will executor, Ragnar Sohlman, who lobbied intensely for the prizes.

In the end, courts from France and Sweden came to fight it out. This was when the Swedes may have made their master stroke, suggesting that the will should be settled by a small court in Karlskoga, a minor city in the middle of Sweden where Alfred had his home at the end of his life – and where, most importantly, Alfred kept his horses.

Ultimately, it was decided that where a man has his horses is also where he belongs. And so the small court of Karlskoga, Sweden, was selected to interpret Alfred Nobel’s will, and the Nobel Prizes were born.

Jonas F. Ludvigsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.