Alfred Nobel—A Man of Contrasts(诺贝尔).pptVIP

Alfred Nobel—A Man of Contrasts Alfred Nobel ,the great Swedish inventor and industrialist ,was a man of many contrasts. He was the son of a bankrupt man, but because a millionaire; a scientist with a love of literature, an industrialist who managed to remain an idealist. He made a fortune but lived a simple life, and although cheerful in company he was often sad in private. A lover of mankind, he never had a wife or family to love him; a patriotic son of his native land, he died alone on foreign soil. He invented a mew explosive—dynamite, to improve the peacetime industries of mining and road building, but saw it used as a weapon of war to kill and injure his fellow men. During his useful life he often felt he was useless. World-famous for his works, he avoided publicity, but since his death, his name has brought fame and glory to others. He was born in Stockholm on October 21,1833,but moved to Russia with his patents in 1842, where his father, Immanuel, made a strong position for himself in the engineering industry. Immanuel Nobel invented the landmine and made a lot of money from government orders for it during the Crimean War, but went bankrupt soon after. Most of the family returned to Sweden in 1859, where Alfred rejoined them in 1863, beginning his own study of explosives in his father’s laboratory. He had never been to school or university but had studied privately and by the time he was twenty, he was a skilful chemist and an excellent linguist, speaking Swedish , Russian, German, French and English. Like his father Alfred Nobel was imaginative and inventive, but he had better Luck in business and showed more financial sense. He was quick to see industrial openings for his scientific inventions and built up over 80 companies in 20 different countries. Indeed his greatness lay in his outstanding ability to combine the qualities of an original scientist with those of forward-looking industrialist. But Nobel’s main concern was never with making money or