Rev. E. Anderson
GREAT BEGINNINGS
Would he be remembered only as the inventor of a terrible weapon of war? The thought haunted Alfred Nobel. So he decided to give his fortune to honour the men who worked for peace and humanity.
If you read an account of the life of some great man or woman in a book or newspaper, you will sometimes see that he or she has been ‘awarded the Nobel Prize’. Many Britons have won such prizes. They include Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Lord Boyd-Orr and Sir John Cockcroft.
What, then is a Nobel prize? It is a sum of money, given to people who have done great work in physics, chemistry, medicine, writing, or promoting world peace. It all began as an amazing idea in the mind of a lonely Swedish inventor named Alfred Nobel. At least Nobel was born in Sweden. But he was brought up in Russia, and lived in France, Italy, Britain and Germany.
‘The world is my workshop,’ said Nobel the wanderer. And in his workshop he invented one of the most useful gifts, yet one of the most terribly destructive weapons, known to man – dynamite. When Alfred Nobel was still a young man, an Italian chemist made an important discovery. He mixed a chemical called acid with glycerine and obtained an oily liquid which was called nitro-glycerine. Nitric The Italian abandoned experiments on this new oil because he didn’t like the smell of it. But Alfred Nobel heard about it and, helped by his father, a well-known inventor, he began experiments with it.
One day when he was away from his laboratory a tremendous nitro-glycerine explosion shattered the building. When the smoke had cleared the bodies of four men were found among the debris. One of them was Alfred’s youngest brother, Oscar. Stunned as people were, the explosion served to show the power of Nobel’s explosive oil.
At this time many countries in the world were in the throes of big building schemes. There were new mines to be dug, roads and railways to be built for the new machine age, canals like the great Suez to be driven. If only this new explosive mixture could be harnessed it would speed up all these huge operations. This was the task which young Alfred Nobel set himself. Very soon the energetic Swedish inventor who had come from humble beginning was a rich man.
However, many people died through its use and people panicked over it. Governments talked of prohibition of it, including England. Then came Nobel’s great victory. He found that when nitro-glycerine was combined with an inert, absorbent substance it formed a pasted which was very mush safe to handle, yet retained all the explosive power of liquid nitro-glycerine. Thus was dynamite discovered. His inventive mind did not stop there. He combined nitro-glycerine with another high explosive called gun-cotton to make blasting gelatine.
All the time Nobel, who never married, worried that his great discoveries might be used with terrible effect in war. Once he said: ‘I wish I could produce a substance so devastating that wars would become altogether impossible’. In the year 1888 Alfred Nobel’s brother Ludwig died. The newspapers confused the two men and thought it was Alfred who was dead. So they described him as the inventor of dynamite-a man who became rich by the sale of terrible weapons.
Alfred was appalled at what he read. Was this to be the way people would remember him? Was he to be branded as the man who manufactured death on a large scale? Quietly Afred Nobel decided to change all that. He made a great fortune from his discoveries and from some Russian oilfields he had developed with his brothers.
Carefully he made his plans. And when he died eight years later the amazed world heard what he had done. In his will Nobel directed that his huge fortune should be invested ad the interest from it should be used to provide five great Nobel prizes each year. They were to be awarded for distinction in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, and literature and world peace. No consideration was to paid to the nationality of the candidates for the prizes. Since his death these wishes have been faithfully carried out.
It took the unusual wrong record of his death to turn things round in his life. The question to be asked and truthfully answered: What will you be remembered for? Now is the opportune moment to decide to a good legacy from your life and labour for Christ that will bless and benefit others.
