James Baquet

    Today’s scientist is well known to the world through the establishment of the sometimes-controversial “Nobel Peace Prize” and other prizes in literature and the sciences. But what many don’t realize is that the money for the prizes was amassed as a result of the sale of armaments, and especially one of his most famous inventions: dynamite.

    Like his father before him, the Swedish-born Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) was an inventor and engineer. As a young boy he learned from his father how to make explosives. Taught largely by private tutors, he mastered English, French, German, Russian, and Italian, in addition to his native Swedish. Although his formal schooling never exceeded 18 months, his written English was good enough for the production of poetry, plays, and other literary output.

    He studied with various chemists, including Ascanio Sobrero, inventor of nitroglycerin. Though known to be a powerful substance, nitroglycerin was unstable; after Nobel’s younger brother was killed in a “nitro” explosion at the family’s factory, Nobel invented and patented dynamite. He went on to invent the even more stable (and powerful) gelignite; and eventually ballistite, which led to cordite — both of which were substitutes for the old-fashioned “black powder” used as gunpowder.

    Nobel received high honors for his work, including election to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1884) and an honorary doctorate degree from Uppsala University (1893). On the other hand, France charged him with treason for the sale of his inventions to Italy.

    His reputation remains mixed today. A self-avowed pacifist, he made great sums of money on munitions (as well as investments in his two surviving brothers’ oilfields). When his brother Ludvig died in 1888, French newspapers mistakenly reported Alfred’s death, with one obituary reading, “The merchant of death is dead.”

    In fact, he died in 1896 of a stroke complicated by a heart ailment.

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. period of time spent doing something

    2. a highly explosive material containing nitroglycerin

    3. crimes against a country

    4. newspaper article about a person’s death

    5. things that go “boom!”

    6. one who believes in peace

    7. weapons and ammunition used in war (two examples)

    8. became skillful at

    9. described by the person himself

    10. unstable material used as both an explosive and a heart medicine