“The words he said she did not decipher
The meaning may be low, or they may be hyper!
But the way he said it was the real deal!
His sweet voice! The smooth note and his enthusiastic zeal!”
The cycle of destruction and creation has been described in every major place! Be it the mighty epics or even physics! Even one of the theories of the origin of the universe begins with a bang!
So for every creation there has to be a destruction! You have to level the ground to build a big building! The levelling of any structure or even controlled blasting is now dependent mainly on the discovery of Dynamite and its later successors! For all the practical purposes the dynamite changed the construction industry!
Now the discovery of dynamite and the change of hearywere two accidents!
Read on!
In the mid-19th century, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel worked with nitroglycerin, a highly volatile and explosive liquid. He attempted to find a safe and manageable way to harness nitroglycerine’s explosive power for construction and mining purposes and control its detonation.
Alfred suggested to his father that they focus their attention on making nitroglycerine on a large scale. Immanuel Nobel did not need much convincing because his factory in St. Petersburg, which had been very profitable during the Crimean War, now faced bankruptcy.
The family moved back to Sweden and set up a factory to produce nitroglycerine. Almost immediately tragedy struck when an explosion killed Emil, the youngest son. The nitration of glycerine was a dangerous business. So dangerous that in some cases the workers who monitored the reaction were made to sit on one-legged stools so that they would immediately wake up should they doze off!
You would expect someone who is working in front of a bubbling kettle frothing with brown fumes of nitrogen oxides, containing the most powerful explosive known to mankind would not sleep but then sleep is a pretty strong motivator!
Making nitroglycerine wasn’t the only problem. How to detonate it was an even bigger concern. Alfred solved this problem with his invention of the mercury fulminate blasting cap.
He had long considered the idea of mixing nitroglycerine with some solid material with the hope of decreasing its shock sensitivity. This lead to the first accident!
One day, Nobel was working with the substance when a vial fell to the floor and smashed. But it didn’t explode, due to the contact it had made with a pile of sawdust, which helped to stabilize it!
Nobel later perfected the mixture by using kieselguhr, a form of silica, as a stabilizing substance. The production of a niroglycerin/kieselguhr combination was the beginning of what we now know as dynamite!
The sticks of dynamite could now be safely transported and would only explode when triggered with a blasting cap. Dynamite would change the world. It would allow even the Panama Canal to be built!
The invention of dynamite forever changed construction, mining, and demolition fields, making large-scale projects more feasible and efficient.
Then the second accident happened!
Nobel wasn’t in the best of health but he knew he wasn’t dead! So when he found his obituary, prominently featured in the morning newspaper was a shock indeed!
What was even more shocking was that not only had the newspaper killed him off prematurely, it had described him as a man who “became rich by finding a way to kill more people faster than ever before.” In other words he was remembered as ‘The merchant of Death!’
The French press service that provided the story had made a mistake or an accident!
It was actually Alfred’s older brother Ludvig who had died while vacationing in Cannes but a reporter had gotten the brothers mixed up!
Now though it was a mistake and an accident, it was a rude awakening for Nobel who immediately set upon making a prize which would be sponsored by the very money he earned from his scary invention! The most coveted prize in the world right now! The Nobel Prize! The circle continues! The destruction lead to creation! Though we may have to wait a long time for another singer like birthday celebrity Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam though…
He will be missed…
Now listen to Jote Joteyalli song by SPB and sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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