Immanuel Nobel the Younger ( , ; 24 March 1801 – 3 September 1872) was a Swedish people engineer, architect, inventor and industrialist. He was the inventor of the rotary lathe used in plywood manufacturing and also designed and worked on several inventions such as an improved Naval mine used in the Crimean War.
Biography
Early life and education
As Nobel's family could not afford formal education, his father taught him how to read and write. At the age 14, Nobel became a sailor, then after his return to Sweden in 1819 when he was 18, he went into the building industry.
Sometime from 1822 and 1825 Nobel attended lessons at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science's engineering college in
Stockholm. In 1827 he married Andriette Ahlsell, of whose children eight survived infancy.
St. Petersburg and the Crimean war
In 1833 Nobel became bankrupt after failing to start business in his native
Sweden after a few years Nobel without his family moved to first to Finland, and then to
Saint Petersburg, Russia. Here he was attached to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Katarina along with other Swedes such as Johan Patrik Ljungström, with whom he may have collaborated.
[ Fredrik Ljungström 1875-1964 - Uppfinnare och inspiratör (1999), Olof Ljungström] Nobel started a mechanical workshop Fonderies et Ateliers Mécaniques Nobel Fils, making military equipment for the Russian army.
During the
Crimean War Nobel worked on improving naval mines that Nicholas I took interest then using them in the war.
[Steve LeVine (2007) The Oil and the Glory. Random House. . p. 16] During this time Nobel also invented several machine tools and a system for central heating.
After the end of the Crimean War in 1856 and with a consequent cutting of the military budget by the new Tsar Alexander II, his company began facing financial difficulties.
Nobel Appointed his son
Ludvig Nobel as director of the business and returned to Sweden with his wife and with two of his other sons
Alfred Nobel and Emil.
In 1862, Immanuel's firm was sold by his creditors.
Return to Sweden and death
Upon Nobel's return to Sweden he and his sons began experimenting with
Nitroglycerin. An explosion at nitroglycerin factory in
Heleneborg,
Sweden on September 3, 1864 killed killed his son Emil and several other. Shortly after the explosion Nobel suffered a stroke and was confined to his bed during this time he wrote the paper
”Försök till anskaffande af arbetsförtjenst till förekommande af den nu, genom brist deraf tvungna utvandringsfebern" published after his death in1870.
Nobel would not recover from the stroke he died on 3 September 1872.
Nobel's son
Alfred Nobel would continue his work with nitroglycerin going on to invent
dynamite, after his death in 1896 he gave his to establish the
Nobel Prize and the
Nobel Foundation which manages them in his family's namesake in 1900 and 1901 respectively.
Sources
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Schück, Henrik, Ragnar Sohlman, Anders Österling, Carl Gustaf Bernhard, the Nobel Foundation, and Wilhelm Odelberg, eds. Nobel: The Man and His Prizes. 1950. 3rd ed. Coordinating Ed., Wilhelm Odelberg. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1972, p. 14. (10). (13). (Originally published in Swedish as Nobelprisen 50 år: forskare, diktare, fredskämpar.)
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Yergin, Daniel (2003): The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, Free Press, p. 58.
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Åsbrink, Brita (2001): Ludvig Nobel: "Petroleum har en lysande framtid!" Wahlström & Widstrand, p. 19.
External links
