The recent announcements of the 2021 Nobel Prizes was widely covered in the general media, especially as some of the prizes relate to important current affairs: the danger for our environment and climate change were focused upon in the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics, and the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
I was interested in Alfred Nobel (1833 to 1896), the person who created these prizes. – He was “a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize, though he also made several important contributions to science, holding 355 patents in his lifetime. Nobel’s most famous invention was dynamite, a safer and easier means of harnessing the explosive power of nitroglycerin; it was patented in 1867 and was soon used worldwide for mining and infrastructure development.”
But how did it happen that this chemist moved beyond the field of his technical expertise?
He was also a successful businessman, especially with an iron and steel company, a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments. He established his businesses in different countries of Europe but also in the USA. These activities were enhanced by the fact that he was fluent in six languages – Swedish, English (he even wrote poetry in English), French, German, Italian, and Russian. He used to travel a lot, living over time in different countries: in 1865 to 1873, his home was in Hamburg/Germany; from 1873 to 1891 he lived in Paris/France, and in 1896 he died in San Remo/Italy, his last residence.
“He remained unmarried, although his biographers note that he had at least three loves, the first in Russia with a girl named Alexandra who rejected his proposal. In 1876, Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsk became his secretary, but she left him after a brief stay to marry her previous lover Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Her contact with Nobel was brief, yet she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and probably influenced his decision to include a peace prize in his will. She was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize “for her sincere peace activities”. Nobel’s longest-lasting relationship was with Sofija Hess from Celje in Slovenia” (the same country from where Melanie Trump came from, the wife of former President Trump) “whom he met in 1876. The liaison lasted for 18 years.”
Another intresting aspect about the life of this person is the following: “Nobel was Lutheran and regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad during his Paris years, led by pastor Nathan Söderblom, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. He became an agnostic in youth and was an atheist later in life, though he still donated generously to the Church.”
All this is not yet an explanation why he created the prizes.
It is said that a newspaper published – wrongly – an obituary while Alfred Nobel was still alive, describing him as an evil profiteer of war, because of his businesses involved in armaments, especially also because of his income from the explosive dynamite, which he invented. This accusation motivated him to dedicate in 1895 his business gains to create the Nobel Prizes, which would “annually recognize those who conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” He asked the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his will, would be responsible for choosing the laureates in physics and in chemistry.
The list of the Nobel Prizes is now longer:
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1895)
- Nobel Prize in Physics (1895)
- Nobel Prize in Literature (awarded since 1901, suggested in the will of Alfred Nobel “in the field of literature, which produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction”)
- Nobel Peace Prize (suggested in the will of Alfred Nobel, since 1901)
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (awarded by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in these two fields)
- Prize in Economic Sciences (established 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel by Sweden’s central bank)
Each Nobel Prize recipient receives a gold medal, a diploma, and a monetary award. In 2021, the Nobel Prize monetary award is 10,000,000 Swedish Krona, presently about US$ 1,160,000.