The Swedish technologist Alfred Nobel (1833-96), was the inventor of dynamite. He was the son of the plywood inventor, Immanuel. Immanuel Nobel was fascinated by the applications of gunpowder and this interest was passed on to his son.
Nitroglycerine, a very strong explosive, was discovered by the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero in 1846. The explosive was useless at that time due to its sensitivity and because it was so uncontrollable.
In 1865, Alfred Nobel created his most significant invention - a detonating cap consisting of mercury fulminate. The great advantage being that substances such as nitroglycerine could be detonated at will with relative safety. While it guaranteed that nitroglycerine could be utilised on a massive scale, it did nothing to ease the trauma of transporting and handling this awkward oil.
Alfred Nobel realised that his future and fortune lay with nitroglycerine, but he needed to find a way of taming it. The first task for Nobel was to turn nitroglycerine into a more manageable substance. The obvious solution was to soak it up with something porous. He tried a variety of non-explosive materials such as paper and dry clay but to no avail. In the late 1860's, he experimented with an unusual though common mineral called kieselguhr. This explosive takes on the texture of dough. It was found to be 25 percent less powerful than nitroglycerine but was still much more mighty than gunpowder. Its greatest benefit was that it could be easily managed.
Alfred Nobel was proud of his new invention. Although the ingredient was already commonly known the new preparation was the beginning of a new era. For this reason, Nobel decided the explosive should have a new name, he called it `dynamite.'
