chemi~tryon /tamp/ edited by:
JAMES 0. SCHRECK Northern Colorado Greeiey, CO 80639
University of
C. MARVINLANG University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. WI 54481
Alfred Nobel and Philately The Man, His Work, and His Prizes Foll A. Miller University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. PA 15260
George 6. Kauffman California State University. Fresno, Fresno. CA 93740 Alfred Bernhard Nobel, noted chemist, inventor, and philanthropist, made two momentous contributions to science, technology, and society. The first was his work on explosives, esneciallv the invention of the nercussion caw and of dvnamite. ~ h second k was his establishment of the Nobel prizes, which are awarded in five fields: Chemistw. Phvsics. Phvsiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. ?Asixth piize was initiated in Economics in 1969, but it is funded separately by the Swedish Riksbank.) These prizes have become the preeminent accolade in their respective subjects. They bring a handsome cash award, but the honor and distinction that they convey is treasured even more. Because of these prizes, Nobel's name has probably been uttered and written more than that of any other scientist. As a consequence of his fame, many stamps have been issued in Nobel's honor. The table contains a list of them arraneed alnhabeticallv. bv. countw. I t identifies 35 stamns or so&eniriheets from 20 countries. (No. I, on Zinin, is the only one not honorina Nobel.) Manv of the stamws are illustrated in the figure, but only one souvenir sheetis included because they are so large. All the items pictured show a , &any have symbols ;epresenting the portrait of ~ o b e land fields of the Nobel Prizes or illustrations of the Nobel medals. Stamp no. 3 from Benin is an example. No articles about Nobel have appeared in English in the chemical literature since Jorpes's excellent paper almost three decades ago.' Because Nobel's life was filled with extraordinarv and dramatic events and excewtional achievements, his biography is unusually interesting and deserves retelling for a new generation. For this reason, and because Nobel has been honored by many philatelic issues, it is ap~rooriate that an article be devoted to him in the "Chem.. . istry on Stamps" feature. Early Life Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 21, 1833, the third of four surviving sons. He died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896, at the age of 63. The name Nobel (accent on the last svllable) is derived from a place called ~ 6 b b e l 6 vin the we dish province of Scania, which is the most southerlv Dart of the countrv. His father. Immanuel Nobel the YOU&& was a self-educked invento; of considerable ability. His mother was Andrietta Nobel (n6e Ahlsell). In 1833, the year Alfred was born, his father became bankrupt, and in 1837 he went to Finland to make a fresh start. A few years later he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia,
' Jorpes, J. E. J. Chem. Educ. 1960,37,328-334
where he founded a business to manufacture machinery, iron goods, and military equipment. However, he could not afford to bring his family from Stockholm for five years. Identnbation and Dercrlptlon of the Stamps scon of Catalog issue NO. year
Stamp
issuing Country
NO.
USSR Antigua Benin
2618 454 567 246
Cennal Africa
1962 1976 1983 1978 1976 1984
Chad
1984
484 452 C181
Bhutan Bhutan
-
Grenada Grenada-Grenadines GrenadaOrenadiner GrenadaGrenadines Grenada-Grenadines GrenadbGTenadines Grenada-Grenadines Grenada-Grenadines ivory Coast Korea, North Korea. Nonh Korea, North Mali Monaco Panama Panama Panama Paraguay Paraguay Paraguay Senegal Swaziland Sweden Sweden Sweden Upper Voila WallisandFutuna
1978
1978 1976 1978 1978 1978 1978 1976 1978 1984 1984 1984
1971
1983 1965 1965 1965 1977 1977
1978
Denom.
-
645
833 FTRE FTR FTR
FTR FTR FTR FTR 465
-
C115 1395 FTR FTR
FTR FTR FTR FTR
1971 C103A 1983 439 1946 380 1946 381 1946 382 1977 445 1983 C124 ~~~
...
20 d 500 fr(ss) 150fr
'Only damp in thistable thatdoes not honor Nobel &SS
= .WVB.i,*hBBt.
'FTR =for the r-m. No number assigned:no description given. mink^. = Minkus stamp Eataiog. ' T h e a w r s have not seen theaampar an adequate delcrlptionof it andarenot sure that the Item lo appropriate.
Volume 65 Number 10 October 1968
843
Because Alfred was in Door health, he had onlv. a vear of . formal schooling before his mother took her sons to St. Petersbura in October 1842 to join their father. From then on Alfredand his brothers were taught by private Swedish and Russian tutors. One of them was the eminent Russian chemist Nikolai Nikolaevich Zinin (1812-1880), the first chemist tosynthesize aniline (no. 1). In 1850, at the age of 17, Alfred was sent abroad to study for two years in Germany, France, Italy, and the United States. Little is known about what he did durine that time. but he became an excellent linguist, fluent in Swedish, ~ L s s i a n German, , French, and English (and later Italian). Chemistry became Alfred's principal interest, but almost nothing is known about where he studied it e x c e ~that t it was probably in Paris. Shortly afte; Nobel returned to Russia, that country became involved in the Crimean War against England and France (1854-1856). His father's firm in St. Petersburg was engaged in producing large quantiries of war mat6rit.l. including underwater mines of the father's design for the defenseof harbors. Alfred and his twoolder brothers worked in the factory and obtained much valuable experience. Black powder had been the only known explosive for more than 500 years, and Immanuel Nobel wanted to find something better for his mines. Zinin suggested nitroglycerin, which had recently been prepared for the first time (1847) by the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888), and the Nobel Bergengren, E. AlfredNobel, The ManandHis Worl; Blair, Alan, Transl.; Nelson: New York, 1962; (a) p 36; (b) pp 44-45; (c) pp 35. 160-161; (d) pp 73-74; (e)p 176; (f)Plate14 and pp 141-142; (g) pp 205-217; (h) Plate 15. opposite p 143.
.. Stamps concerning Alfred 6. Nobel. See the table for identification.
844
Journal of Chemical Education
family made preliminary studies of it. After the war the Russian government canceled its contracts with the firm. Alfred's father had to declare bankruptcy again, and in 1859 he returned to Sweden as impoverished as when he had left it. The three older sons remained in Russia to salvage what they could from the business. During this time Alfred received his first patents (on a gasometer, a water meter, and a barometer), which whetted his interest in a career as an inventor. Career After Alfred returned to Sweden in 1863. he and his father obtained a loan and resumed their study of nitroglycerin, working independently on different aspects of the problem. The father had already developed a factory-scale method for its manufacture. In 1863 Alfred made his f i r s t a n d some say his most important-invention, the Nobel patent detonator. At that time there was no controllable method for detonating nitroglycerin. Nobel's device, as finally perfected, consisted of a small charge of mercuric fulminate, HZ(CNO)~. in ametal c a n This was used in coniunction with a b a r g e of nitroglycerii. When the detonator was exploded by a suitable fuse, i t produced a strong shock, which triggered the explosion of the nitroglycerin. This important technique provided far better control than when nitroglycerin was used alone. It made possible the effective application of this and all later high explosives and has been called the greatest advance in thescience of explosives since the invention of gunpowder. In 1864 Alfred and his father established a small laborato ry for the production of nitroglycerin a t Heleneborg on the outskirts of Stockholm. Liauid nitroglycerin is an extremely dangerous and unpredictable explosive because it is detonated a t unexpected times by shock, heat, friction, or other mechanisms. Alfred set to work to try to find a way to control it. On September 3, 1864, the laboratory blew up, killing five people including his younger brorher Emil. The city government refused to allow the laboratory to be rebuilt in a populated area so Alfred continued his experiments on a harge in the middle of a lake to reduce the hazard. The position of the barge was chanced as reauired bv- protests from . the vicinity. Despite the terrible hazards of nitroglycerin, this unpredictable and unstable compound aroused considerable commercial interest. In 1865 (the last year of the U.S. Civil War) the world's first full-scale factory for its manufacture was built by the Nobel family in an isolated area near Stockholm called Vinterviken. Alfred Nobel was managing director, plant engineer, salesman, advertising agent, correspondent, and treasurer. This marked the beginning of his career as an industrialist. The market continued to grow, and another factory was built at Kriimmel near Hamburg, Germany, from which nitroglycerin was shippid to many countries in either tin canisters or in glass demi. johns crated in wood. Unfortunately, many accidents involving nitroglycerin occurred, and hair-raising stories of these a b o ~ n d . ~ a These mishaps were caused in part by
iw treacherous nature and in part by ignorance on the part of the persons handling it. It was used for boot polish, lamp oil. and-ereasine waeonwheels-seldom more than once hv the sameperso; ~ i h ehimself l has related that he once h i d to deal with a tank of frozen nitroelvcerin and that he due it out "" with a joiner's adz! Nobel devoted tremendous effort to trying to tame nitroglycerin. He mixed i t with a variety of materials, and ultimatelv chose diatomaceous earth (kieseleuhr) as the most satisf&tory. This is an inert and porous ajbsorhent made up of the siliceous skeletons of mvriads of tinv sea rreatures. Nobel found that three parts of nitroglycer& to one part of kieselguhr gave a powdered solid that had 75% of the explosive power of pure nitroglycerin but which was essentially free of its terrible hazards. It could not be exploded without a detonating cap and therefore could be handled and transported in relative safety. It could also he put in rolled paper tubes that could be inserted directly into boreholes a t any angle. He named the mixture "dynamite" from the Greek word dynamis, meaning power. I t was patented in Sweden and Britain in 1867 and in the United States in 1868, and it was quickly adopted. Dynamite was of enormous importance because it replaced a great deal of back-hreaking human labor. I t was an essential aid in excavating for roads, railroads, canals, tunnels, and mines. Many projects that we take for granted today would be virtually impossible without the help of a useful explosive like dynamite. Examples of some gigantic projects in which dynamite was used while Nobel was still alive are the buildine of the St. Gotthard railroad line in Switzerland, the cleiing of the Danube a t the Iron Gate. and the dieeineof the Corinth Canal in Greece (295 feet deep and nearly 4 miles long). Nobel was 33 years old at the time of his momentous discoverv. I t is often said that dynamite was an accidental discovery, hut Bergengren, who had the Nohel Foundation's support and free access to its files, states that Nobel himself vehemently denied this and that there is no evidence for it.2bThe legendary story is that in 1866 Nobel had a stroke of good luck hy coming across a tin of nitroglycerin that had leaked. The liquid had been absorbed by the packing material, which happened to he kieselguhr. In spite of having absorbed the nitroelvcerin. the earth aw~eareddrv. Nobel experimented wit( the mixture and f&d that his problem had been solved. Thus was dvnamite discovered. accordine to this apocryphal tale. Dynamite was such a success that Nohel built 93 factories in 21 countries to manufacture it. Although heavily involved in the husiness side of his many enterprises, he did not like that aspect and always longed to get back to his laboratory. He never had a private office, a secretary, or a permanent lawyer! He personally anwered all the mail that he received, and he wrote, ropied, and registered all letters himself. On somedavs he mailed 2001 3O(,f them. all written in hissmall. plain hand and always in the recipient's own language. He lived in Hamburg (1865-18731, in Paris (1873-1891), and in San Remo, Italy, from 1891 until his death in 1896. He traveled a areat deal on business. and was "iokinelv called Europe's wealthiest vagabond.1.2c There was still a need for an even more powerful hlastine agent to use with very hard rock, and ~ o b esought l to improve dynamite by replacing the inert kieselguhr with something that could pariicipa
