Alfred Nobel Essay example -- essays research papers

Alfred NobelBorn in Stockholm in 1833 of Swedish parents, Alfred Nobel moved with his familyto St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia, at the age of nine. There his unflagging and inventive father soon acquired a strong and respected position asan inventor and industrialist. Nobel subsequently lived in several countries andultimately came to regard himself as a citizen of the world. Even so, he nevergave up his Swedish citizenship.By virtue of the education he received in many countries, Nobel read, spoke andwrote fluently in five European languages Swedish, Russian, English, french andGerman. His numerous handwritten letters demonstrate his remarkable proficiencyin all of them. He perfected his French when sent to Paris by his father in hislate teens to study chemistry. His letters in French are particularly elegant.Those in English sometimes bear traces of the early nineteenth-century stylegenerally associated with Byron and Shelley (his two favourite poets) and areremarkably free of grammatical and idiomatic errors. To his mother he alwayswrote in Swedish, which is also the language of the will he composed in Paris.The fields embraced by the prizes stipulated by the will reflect Nobelspersonal interests. While he provided no prizes for architects, artists,composers or social scientists, he was generous to those working in physics,chemistry, physiology and medicinethe subjects he knew best himself, and inwhich he expected the greatest advances.Throughout his demeanor he suffered from poor health and often took cures atwatering places, less to drink the water than to rest. But he expected greatimprovements in medicine, and the job has since realized many of them.Once he employed a young Swedish physiologist in Paris to test his own theorieson blood transfusions. Although these efforts were not successful, problemsrelated to transfusions were later solved by an Austrian, Karl Landsteiner, whowon the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.The Nobel P rize in Literature, too, reflects the donors personal predilections.From his early youth he had been a writer as well as an avid reader, but helater destroyed many of his adolescent poems written in Swedish. He did, however, husband a long autobiographical poem in English and occasionally gave copies of itto intimate friends. He was always an omnivorous reader of bo... ...ctiveprize-awarding bodies. After the merits of the candidates have been discussed,the bodies advertise their final decisions in mid-October. All proceedings of theprize-awarding bodies are secret.The presentation ceremonies The Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiologyor Medicine, Literature and the Prize in Economic Sciences are presented to thelaureates by H.M. the female monarch at a ceremony generally held in the Stockholm ConcertHall on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobels death in 1896 at Sanremo,Italy. The quietness Prize presentation takes place on the same day at the Oslo CityHall. Each laureate receives a Nobel Gold Medal and a Nobel Diploma. The prizemoney, which varies according to the net income of the fund capital, istransferred after December 10 according to the laureates wishes. In 1995, thevalue of the Nobel Prizes was some SEK 7.2 million per prize.The awards are widely know as the worlds highest civic honors. Besidesspurring recipients and possible candidates to new efforts, they have served tomake scientific and literary achievements, as well as humanitarian contributions, such(prenominal) more widely known than would otherwise have been the case.