His name may be most closely associated with the Peace Prize he founded, but Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel first became famous for creating a less-than-peaceful invention: dynamite. However, this game-changing explosive wasn't the result of deliberate action, but rather a surprising accident.
Nobel spent several years attempting to stabilize nitroglycerin, a liquid compound with explosive properties. After considerable trial and error (resulting in multiple accidental detonations with casualties), Nobel found the solution while transporting nitroglycerin to a new lab facility in the mid-1860s.
One of the cans used to hold the nitroglycerin popped open during transit, and upon opening the cargo area to assess the damage, Nobel realized that the packing material surrounding the cans — a soft but solid compound of sedimentary rock known as kieselguhr — absorbed the liquid nitroglycerin in just the right way to stabilize it. This discovery led to further experimentation, and once Nobel figured out how to merge nitroglycerin and kieselguhr without compromising the former's potency, he had the recipe for dynamite.
As it turns out, Nobel's legacy relied on mistakes more than once. In 1888, Nobel's brother passed away, and a French newspaper erroneously claimed that Alfred Nobel died instead.
In the incorrect obituary they published for Nobel, they dubbed him a "merchant of death" and assigned Nobel blame for the destructive potential of his most famous invention. Deeply upset and ashamed by this reaction to his life's work, Nobel revised his own last will and testament, bequeathing the bulk of his estate to future winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
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