alfred nobel comprehensive outline

8/11/2019 Alfred Nobel Comprehensive Outline

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Comprehensive Outline James Roche

General Purpose: To commemorate

Specific Purpose: To commemorate the life and work of Alfred Nobel

Central Idea: The life and work of Alfred Nobel

I) Introduction

A) Hello, today I will be commemorating the life of a man who has had an

impact on the work towards peace within our world.

B) This man was a chemist, inventor, and industrialist. He was a man who had

invented the very destructive material known as dynamite as well as the

acclaimed Nobel Peace Prize. This man is Alfred Bernhard Nobel.

C)

In this speech I will be giving a background of Nobels early life and

childhood as well as how he came to be who he was.

D)

Also, his later life will be discussed with regards to his inventions and the

establishment of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

E) This speech will serve to give information about Alfred Nobel not many

people would know without some research as well as the praise him for the

continuous attempt at the betterment of our world.

Now, after giving a broad overview of the concepts of my speech, I will begin by

discussing Nobels early life.

II)

Body

1)

The first main point is with regards to Nobels early life. He was born on

October 21, 1833 in Stockholm Sweden and was the fourth son of

Immanuel and Caroline Nobel.


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(a)

As a child he was quite prone to sickness and, perhaps due to this, had

a relatively close bond with his mother. He was also known to have

shown intellectual curiosity from his early ages and was interested in

explosives, which later in in life, did more harm than good.

(i) To make matters worse, in 1837 the Nobel family went bankrupt

due to misfortunes in Immanuels construction work. As a result of

this, Immanuel left his family in Stockholm for the five years he as

abroad. During these five years he was attempting to get started in

a new position so he could support his family once again.

(ii)

For the five years Alfred and his brothers were separated from

their father, they were stricken with severe poverty. To try and

make living bearable by gaining some income, their mother

opened a grocery store with money her parents provided. Luckily,

in 1842, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Immanuel was successful in the

manufacturing of explosive mines and machine tools and was able

to bring his family there and support them once again.

(b)With his recent success, Immanuel was able to give his children an

education.

(i) The education they had was not like the usual education were all

accustomed to, instead they were taught at home by private tutors.

The subject Nobel took a liking to, were English Literature and

poetry as well as some Chemistry and Physics. Immanuel, wanting

his sons to join him as engineers, didnt approve of Alfreds


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choices. So in order to broaden Alfreds horizons, he was sent

abroad.

(ii)

During his time abroad, Alfred visited many countries and in Paris,

he worked in the lab of chemist, Professor Pelouze. In this lab he

met Ascanio Sobrero, the man who had invented nitroglycerine, a

highly explosive material that explodes in a very unpredictable

manner under enough heat and pressure. Nobel, being interested

in explosives from a young age, took interest in nitroglycerine in

the way of it being used for construction work.

Moving onto the second main point, Nobels later life, his inventions and the Nobel

Peace Prize will be discussed.

2)

Some time after he was abroad, he went back to Russia to work with his

father and due to his exposure to fellow engineers while abroad, he was

influenced to take after them by creating his own inventions.

(a)With his father, he performed experiments to develop nitroglycerine

as a commercially and technically useful explosive. From these

experiments, he was able to coin some of his own inventions back in

Sweden.

(i) The first major invention came about in 1864. This invention was

the blasting cap, a metal cap containing an explosive substance

that can be detonated either by shock or heat. Without this

invention, his idea for the use of nitroglycerine in construction

work may have never been fulfilled.


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(ii)

His second and most destructive invention was that of dynamite.

In 1864, after one of his factories exploded, killing his brother and

several other, he wanted to make something easier and safer to

handle than nitroglycerine. After trial and error, he found that

mixing nitroglycerine with kieselguhr produced a compound of

doughy mass able to pressed into cartridges and wrapped in paper

tubes. This outcome was what he called dynamite, an object that

had been put to use in building railways and roads as well as

blasting tunnels. Aside from this, Nobel is most well known for his

establishment of something still very prominent today, the Nobel

Peace Prize.

(b)

As Nobel aged, his health grew relatively worse and in 1896 his life

came to an end. He suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage in San Remo

Italy and his will was opened not long after his death. In it he left a

vast majority of his fortune to establish prizes awarded to those who

have done the best work to unify nations, abolishing wars, and

promoting peace.

(i)

The first such reason goes back to when his secretary, Bertha von

Suttner left Nobel to marry back in Austria, leaving Nobel

heartbroken. Regardless, they still remained friends and over the

years, von Suttner became critical of the arms race and became a

prominent figure in the peace movement. With the fact of his


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previous lover being involved in the peace movement perhaps

inspired him to promote peace himself.

(ii)

The second reason is simple in actuality; Nobel wanted to make

amends for the destructive devise he brought into the world.

For someone who died so wealthy is a profound contrast to his childhood.

III)Conclusion

A) In giving an account of Alfred Nobels life, hopefully some new facts were

learned that were not previously known.

B)

Recapping, Nobel was born with a tough childhood and showed intellectual

interest in explosive.

C)

When he learned of nitroglycerine, he planned for its use in construction, and

based off this idea, he invented the blasting cap and dynamite. Finally, after

his death, his will was read and in it, declared for creation of the Nobel Peace

Prizes.

D) We have many opportunities during our life to determine our legacy. Who

would you rather be known as, the inventor of dynamite or the person who

established the Nobel Peace Prize?

E)

Thanks You


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Works Cited:

"Alfred Nobel - His Life and Work". Nobelprize.org.Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 4

Mar 2014.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Alfred Bernhard Nobel (Swedish inventor)."

Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., 19 Mar. 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Fant, Kenne.Alfred Nobel: A Biography. New York: Arcade, 2006. Print.

alfred nobel comprehensive outline

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