Alfred Nobel was born in October 1833 in Stockholm, United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway. He was the third child of the large family of Emmanuel and Carolina Nobel. Much of his childhood and adolescence was spent in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his father was active in business. In Russia, Nobel studied Chemistry, a science in which he excelled in the following years.
Alfred soon began experimenting with explosives in a small laboratory on his father’s estate. In 1862 he built a small factory for the production of nitroglycerin and at the same time began his research to discover a way to ensure the controlled explosion of the explosive. In 1863 he invented a practical detonator consisting of a wooden plug inserted into a larger charge of nitroglycerine held in a metal container. The explosion of the plug’s small gunpowder charge serves to detonate the much more powerful charge of liquid nitroglycerin. This detonator marked the beginning of Nobel’s fame as an inventor. In addition to explosives, however, Nobel made many other inventions, securing a total of more than 350 patents in various countries.
Thanks to his inventions, Nobel acquired a huge fortune. But due to the fact that many of his inventions were used in the arms industry, Nobel received the nickname “merchant of death”. On November 27, 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, in which he stated that he would allocate most of his fortune to the establishment of a new institution, the Nobel Prizes. The Prizes were five (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology-Medicine, Literature and Peace) and would be awarded annually to outstanding people or organizations regardless of their nationality. Nobel passed away a year later on December 10, 1896. In his honor, the Nobel Prize ceremony is held every year on December 10. The awards were first presented in 1901
The only Greeks who have been awarded the Nobel Prize so far are Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, among the great poets of the “30’s generation”. Seferis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 and Odysseus Elytis in 1979.
Column Editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
