Testament to the Nobel Prize

Alfred Nobel

Correctly 110 years ago on November 27, 1895 Alfred NOBEL signed a will to spend most of his fortune for the creation of a prize named after him.

One year after December 10, 1896, Nobel died. Testament begin to take effect. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Nobel, in the journal KH and ĐS on December 31, 1996, I had the opportunity to introduce the handwritten will of the Nobel for this award.

However, it is only a part of the will that relates to the prize, and the full will will not be collected at that time. In August 2005, I had the opportunity to visit the Nobel Museum in Stockholm (Sweden) and visit Alfred Nobel's grave. On this occasion I obtained Alfred Nobel's full will and details related to this will.

A view of Alfred Nobel

Visiting Alfred Nobel grave, I saw a monument on a grave in the tomb, with gold letters on the upper part of the tower with ALFRED NOBEL 1932 - 1896 recorded.

Next to the foot of the tower on the right is the name of his parents. His father, Immanuel Nobel, his mother Andrietta Ahlsell.

In 1842, when Nobel was only nine years old, he followed his father to the Russian capital. There his father opened a factory to manufacture Russian weapons for the Tsar against the British-French coalition. Due to this influence, the boy Alfred loved chemistry and learned to speak Russian. After Russia lost the war, the Nobel family returned to Sweden.

When 30 years old Nobel was a good chemical engineer, he noticed an invention that could contribute to solving the problem of breaking mountains, digging canals, making roads . It was nitroglycerine explosive. This substance has been invented since 1846 but is very dangerous because it is too explosive, so it has not had favorable application. This substance, when released, will produce 13 times the amount of gas and release explosives at a rate of 7,500m per second.

Three years after studying this substance, in 1866 Nobel controlled it and created a safe explosive called Dynamite, which we transcribed as a mine. As a business-minded man, he opened a factory in many countries to produce this explosive. Before that, he had 300 patents with copyright registration. And from factories in many countries, Nobel became a millionaire at that time with a fortune of more than 500 million USD.

But if his inventive life is successful, he is so unhappy in his love life. In his autobiography, when he was 54 years old, he wrote: "I don't have a family as a mooring place, no friends are loved, there is no enemy to hate."

The birth of the prize

In 1876, when he was 43 years old, Nobel was still a lonely person. He published on a newspaper in Vienna, the Austrian capital (where he had a factory) a line to find friends: " An old, well-educated, rich man, living in Paris, please take a side Middle-aged women know a few foreign languages ​​as secretaries and housekeepers . "

At that time an Austrian woman came to see him, though she was a noble but had economic difficulties, so she had to become a tutor to earn a living. Unfortunately, after finding out he knew she had a betrothed, it was unsuccessful to find a partner and assistant.

Then he met a 20-year-old Jewish girl named Sofia Gherx, a poor girl selling flowers in Vienna. She accepted to Paris with him. Here he hired her a letter of service. But this girl was very greedy and could not learn French, so Nobel was very sad. After more than 10 years, he advised her to get married and later in the will he still gave her a part of the allowance of 6,000 Florins per year.

When I found this original will from the Nobel Museum, I saw that the will has said he paid in advance to the bank in Vienna the amount of 150,000 Florins for her. So she will continue to receive this allowance for more than 20 years.

Besides the tombstone under his parents' names, Nobel named his younger brother Emile Nobel dying in a factory explosion due to his own carelessness.

Perhaps he felt that the great amount of wealth he had made was not only due to the intellectual effort of more than half a century of labor, but also the blood of his own relatives. And perhaps because he had no wife and children, he spent most of his fortune on the establishment of a prize named after him.

NOBEL Prize

The trouble of the will is that Alfred Nobel does not do notarization and does not assign to the lawyer's office. It was a handwritten copy with 4 pages of student papers. Only 4 friends testified with the name and address in the will.

Also in the will, he entrusted an assistant, his mistress maid, Ragnar Sohlman, with another person appointed to carry out the will and he also gave them a considerable amount of money for make wills.

On December 10, 1896, the will was opened to surprise many relatives because they thought they would enjoy more inheritance. This great value asset, after re-collecting equivalent to Coron, is 33.2 million equivalent to 1.4 billion francs (1987). He spent money to make five awards that scientific documents when he published the will only took the first sentence and this paragraph to publish. The following is the will for the NOBEL award:

I am the undersigned, Alfred Bernhard Nobel declares the careful consideration of my will on property matters when I die as follows:

The amount of conversion from my property will be made in the following way:

Most of that money will be invested by my executors in the safest way and will become a capital that annual income will be used to make awards for those of the year Previously there were the greatest contributions to the benefit of mankind.

The income will be divided into 5 equal parts and distributed in the following way:

- A part will give the person with the most important discovery or improvement in the field of Physics.
- A part will be for those who have the most outstanding discoveries or improvements in chemistry;
- One part will be for people with the most important discoveries in physiology and medicine.
- A part will be for people whose work is most meaningful in the field of literature.

And the last part will be for the greatest or best contributor to the friendship between nations, nations, for the cancellation or reduction of permanent troops, for the assembly and organization of associations. Peace Conference.

Awards for Physics and Chemistry will be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Biological and Medical Awards presented by the Caroline Institute in Stockholm, and the Peace Prize will be nominated by a committee of five members nominated by the Norwegian Parliament.

My desperate wish is that there will be no discrimination of nationality in awarding, and the person who deserves the most to receive the prize may or may not be of Northern European origin.

Paris, November 27, 1895.
Alfred Nobel
The NOBEL award was awarded beginning in 1901. So far, more than 750 NOBEL awards have been given to scientists and writers who work peacefully for the world. The awardees are not only an honor for the individual but also bring glory to their country. This is the largest scientific award in the world that promotes the scientific development of humanity.

Nguyen Phuc Giac Hai