60 Fun Facts About Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel was born in 1833 in which city?

The family was so poor at the time that only Alfred and three of his brothers survived childhood.

How many patents did Nobel hold during his life?

His first, filed in England in 1857 when he was 24, was for a gas meter rather than anything that exploded.

Nobel became fluent in how many languages?

Swedish, French, Russian, English, German and Italian; he was good enough in English to write poetry in it.

Which Swedish iron and steel company did Nobel own and turn into a major cannon manufacturer?

He bought it in 1894, and the Björkborn Manor that came with it is now a museum.

Which synthetic chemical element is named after Alfred Nobel?

Element 102 sits among the actinides, next to mendelevium and lawrencium, both also named for scientists.

Which body, of which Nobel was a member, chooses the laureates in physics and chemistry?

He was elected to it in 1884, and never consulted it before naming it in his will.

Nobel's father Immanuel invented which woodworking device that made modern plywood possible?

Immanuel also started work on the naval mine while running an explosives business in Russia.

After his father's bankruptcy, the Nobel family moved in 1842 to which city, then in the Russian Empire?

Immanuel had gone ahead and grown successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives.

How much formal schooling did Alfred Nobel receive?

Private tutors did the rest; he never attended university, though Uppsala gave him an honorary doctorate in 1893.

Nobel wrote a prose tragedy, Nemesis, about which Italian noblewoman?

Almost the entire print run was destroyed after his death as scandalous and blasphemous; it was finally published in Sweden in 2003.

How many copies of Nemesis survived the destruction of its print run after Nobel's death?

The rest were burned by people who considered the play scandalous and blasphemous.

In Paris in 1850 Nobel met which chemist, the man who had synthesised nitroglycerin?

Sobrero strongly opposed using his discovery because it exploded unpredictably under heat or pressure.

While in the United States, the teenage Nobel worked briefly under which Swedish-American inventor?

Ericsson went on to design the ironclad USS Monitor for the Union navy in the Civil War.

Nobel's first patent, filed in England in 1857, was for what?

His first Swedish patent, in 1863, was for ways to prepare gunpowder.

The Nobel family factory produced armaments for which war before going bankrupt when it ended?

It could not switch back to civilian production fast enough once the fighting stopped in 1856.

An 1864 nitroglycerin shed explosion at Heleneborg killed which relative of Nobel's?

He lost his licence to make explosives and moved production to a more isolated site at Vinterviken.

In which year did Nobel patent dynamite?

He had invented a detonator in 1863 and the blasting cap in 1865 along the way.

Dynamite works by soaking nitroglycerin into which absorbent substance?

Kieselguhr is diatomaceous earth, made of the fossilised shells of tiny algae.

Nobel first demonstrated dynamite in 1867 at a quarry in which English county?

The demonstration took place at Redhill.

The word "dynamite" comes from the Greek word for what?

He had first considered a blander name that stressed safety over force.

The 1867 patent text describes dynamite by what alternative name?

He wanted to distance his business from the earlier controversies over dangerous explosives.

Which jelly-like explosive, more powerful and stable than dynamite, did Nobel invent in 1875?

Also called blasting gelatin, it became the standard mining explosive of the Age of Engineering.

Ballistite, patented by Nobel in 1887, was the precursor of what kind of explosive?

It is still used as a rocket propellant, and selling it to Italy got Nobel accused of high treason in France.

Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert made a second family fortune in oil, mainly in which city?

Alfred invested in their company Branobel, and a historian argues the Baku money is what made the prizes possible.

By his death, roughly how many explosives and armament factories had Nobel's business established?

Quite a record for a man biographers describe as apparently pacifist in character.

According to a famous story, a French newspaper's premature obituary called Nobel what?

The obituary supposedly ran after one of his brothers died in 1888; historians have never verified that this exact one existed.

The death of which family member in 1888 supposedly triggered the mistaken obituaries of Alfred?

Le Figaro really did run a hostile front-page notice on 15 April 1888, retracting it the next day.

Nobel signed his final will on 27 November 1895 at which venue?

His family knew nothing about it, and the will was not approved by Norway's Storting until April 1897.

What percentage of his total assets did Nobel's will allocate to the prizes?

That came to 31,225,000 Swedish kronor; by 2022 the foundation's invested capital was roughly 6 billion.

How many prizes did Nobel's will establish?

Physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace; economics was added by Sweden's central bank in 1968.

The 'ideal direction' clause in Nobel's will was used for years to deny the literature prize to which two authors?

The Swedish Academy read "ideal" as "idealistic" and skipped less romantic writers; the reading was later revised.

Which institution set up the economics prize in Nobel's memory to mark its 300th anniversary in 1968?

Nobel's great-great-nephew Peter Nobel later asked the bank to distinguish it clearly from the five real prizes.

Nobel died in late 1896 at his villa in which town?

He had moved there from Paris in 1891 after being accused of high treason for selling ballistite to Italy.

How old was Nobel when he died?

He suffered a stroke and was partially paralysed before dying; some suspect years of nitroglycerin exposure contributed.

Nobel is buried in which cemetery in the city of his birth?

The northern cemetery is also the resting place of Ingrid Bergman and Alva Myrdal.

Nobel's letters describing constant pain, migraines and fatigue have led some to suspect which condition?

His doctors at the time dismissed the complaints as hypochondria, deepening his depression.

Which future Nobel Peace laureate briefly worked as Nobel's secretary in 1876?

She left to marry Baron von Suttner but corresponded with Nobel until his death and probably inspired the Peace Prize.

Nobel's former secretary, the peace campaigner Countess von Suttner, won the Peace Prize in which year?

She was cited "for her sincere peace activities" and was the first woman to win the Peace Prize.

Nobel's longest romance, lasting 18 years, was with Sofie Hess, whom he met where she worked as what?

He was 43 and she 26 when they met in Baden bei Wien; he called her his "great devourer of banknotes."

How many letters from Nobel to Sofie Hess survive to document their relationship?

They span 15 years and also reveal his antisemitic remarks, for which the newspaper Haaretz has criticised him.

From 1873 to 1891 Nobel lived on the Avenue de Malakoff in which city?

Before that he spent eight years at Krümmel near Hamburg, home to his first dynamite factory.

Nobel left France in 1891 after being accused of high treason for selling ballistite to which country?

He settled at Villa Nobel on the Italian Riviera, overlooking the Mediterranean.

St Petersburg's Monument to Alfred Nobel was dedicated in 1991 for which anniversary of the first prize?

The abstract metal sculpture, resembling an explosion or a tree, stands on the embankment where the family lived until 1859.

The Nobel Prizes were first awarded in which year?

That was the fifth anniversary of Nobel's death.

On what date are the Nobel Prizes presented each year?

It is the anniversary of Nobel's death; the banquet follows in the Blue Hall of the City Hall.

Which Nobel Prize is presented in Oslo rather than in Sweden?

Nobel's will named a Norwegian committee for it, and the ceremony has been held at Oslo City Hall since 1990.

Which body awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?

Literature goes to the Swedish Academy, while the sciences academy handles physics, chemistry and economics.

Who were the two executors of Nobel's will who created the Nobel Foundation?

Sohlman, a young engineer, had to smuggle Nobel's securities out of Paris to keep the estate together.

Who is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?

Physics in 1903 for radioactivity, chemistry in 1911 for isolating pure radium.

Who is the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Prize?

She was 17 when she shared the 2014 Peace Prize.

Which writer voluntarily refused the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature?

He said a writer must refuse to be transformed into an institution; Lê Đức Thọ is the only other person to decline outright.

Which chemist dissolved two German laureates' gold medals in acid to hide them from the Nazis?

After the war the gold was recovered from the aqua regia and the medals re-cast.

Which UN Secretary-General was awarded the 1961 Peace Prize posthumously?

Since 1974 laureates must be believed alive at the October announcement; the other posthumous winner was poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931.

In Paris, Nobel attended the Church of Sweden Abroad led by which pastor, later a Peace Prize winner himself?

Nobel was Lutheran by upbringing but an atheist in later life, and still gave generously to the Church.

From 1865 to 1873 Nobel lived at Krümmel, near which German city?

He then spent 18 years on the Avenue de Malakoff in Paris before decamping to Sanremo in 1891.

Which estate, now a museum, came with Nobel's 1894 purchase of Bofors-Gullspång and became his summer home?

Villa Nobel in Sanremo, overlooking the Mediterranean, is where he died in 1896.

How much of his fortune, in Swedish kronor, did Nobel's will set aside for the prizes?

By 2022 the Nobel Foundation had about 6 billion kronor of invested capital.

Which great-great-nephew asked the Bank of Sweden in 2001 to distinguish its economics award from the five real prizes?

Nobel's great-great-nephew added fuel to the debate over whether the economics prize is a legitimate 'Nobel'.

What was the name of the Russian girl who rejected the young Nobel's marriage proposal, his first love?

He never married, though biographers count at least three loves, including an 18-year affair with Sofie Hess.

What did Nobel suffer on 10 December 1896, the event that killed him at 63?

He had developed angina by 1895, and some suspect nitroglycerine poisoning contributed to his declining health.