Alfred Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and arms manufacturer whose vast industrial fortune became the most prestigious benefactor of human intellect and peace. The son of an engineer, Nobel spent his youth in Saint Petersburg studying chemistry under Nikolai Zinin before returning to Sweden to tame the notoriously volatile liquid explosive nitroglycerin, which had killed his younger brother Emil in an 1864 explosion.

In 1867, Nobel made a breakthrough by combining liquid nitroglycerin with porous diatomaceous earth (kieselguhr), creating a pliable, safe, and easily detonable paste that he patented as dynamite, followed by blasting gelatin and ballistite smokeless powder. His 355 patents and worldwide explosives factories brought him colossal wealth. In 1888, when a French newspaper erroneously published his obituary titled 'The Merchant of Death is Dead' upon his brother Ludvig's death, Nobel was horrified by his prospective historical legacy. In his 1895 will, he dedicated 94% of his total fortune to establish the annual Nobel Prizes honoring those who confer the greatest benefit to humankind in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.