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Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prizes

Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden, into a family of engineers. He was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1894, Nobel purchased Bofors iron and steel mill, which he made into a major armaments manufacturer. Nobel also invented ballistite. This invention was a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially the British smokeless powder cordite. As a consequence of his patent claims, Nobel was eventually involved in a patent infringement lawsuit over cordite. Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, with most of his wealth coming from his 355 inventions, of which dynamite is the most famous.

In 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, entitled The merchant of death is dead, in a French newspaper. It was Alfred's brother who died; the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered when he finally died. This inspired him to change his will. On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, from a cerebral hemmorhage. He was 63 years old.


Nobel wrote several wills in his lifetime. He composed the last over a year before he died, signing it at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 27, 1895. To widespread astonishment, Nobel's last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit to mankind" in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million, €150 million in 2008), to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Owing to skepticism about his will, it was not approved by the Storting in Norway until April 26, 1897. The executors of the will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of the fortune and to organize the awarding of the prizes. 

Nobel's instructions named a Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament to award the Peace Prize, the members of whom were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organizations were designated. These were the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded; and, in 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II. In 1905, the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.

In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's central bank, established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The award is based on a donation received by the Nobel Foundation from Sveriges Riksbank on the occasion of the bank's 300th anniversary. The first Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on 1969.

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Picture from Pixabay.

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