Passage1Everyyear,theNobelPriz-考网

Passage 1

Every year, the Nobel Prize is given to outstanding work in six fields: physics, chemistry,medicine, literature, economics, and work in peace. These prizes are named after Alfred Nobel, whoasked for the Nobel Foundation to be made in his will. He was an inventor and businessman.

Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1883. His father, Immanuel Nobel has periods ofsuccess building bridges and periods of not making any money. Immanuel sent Alfi:ed to studychemistry in Paris. Alfred met Ascanio Sobrero, who found the liquid nitroglycerine, a liquid thatexplodes very easily. Alfred thought about making use of nitroglycerine in the construction ofbridges and tunnels. An accident happened during the experiment with the liquid, causing anexplosion, which killed and injured several people, including his brother. He continued looking forways to make this liquid not explode so easily.

Nobel was successful in finding a safe way to store the liquid and in 1864 began producinghuge amounts of it. He found that mixing it with kind of sand would turn the liquid into a paste. Hethen wanted to shape the paste into rods that would make it easy to blow up rock when building atunnel. In 1867, he patented the material as dynamite. This patent greatly reduced the costs ofblasting rock and drilling tunnels. As a businessman, Nobel set up laboratories that made dynamitein 90 locations in more than 20 countries. Although dynamite was useful in construction, manypeople used it as a weapon in war.

At age 43, the wealthy and lonely businessman put an ad in the newspaper for a secretarythough he was really looking for a wife. Bertha Kinsky worked as his secretary for a short time, butmarried another man and became Bertha von Suttner. Bertha and Alfred remained friends and wroteletters many years later. She most likely influenced him to strive for peace. She published a novel "Lay Down Your Arms!" in 1889 and became a leading figure in the peace movement. For thesereasons, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.

Who discovered nitroglycerine