Alfred

Alfred Nobel found out what people thought about him, and it kind of ruined his life.

Here’s the story. Alfred Nobel was a scientist. He was the guy who made nitroglycerin safe enough to use by adding diatomaceous earth to it, creating dynamite. He had several hundred other patents, including a lot of explosive stuff used in warfare. In 1888 when one of his brothers died, several newspapers thought it was him. A particular newspaper in France printed an obituary that supposedly called him “The Merchant of Death” because of his work on weapons. While that may not have been accurately reported, there was definitely one obituary printed that read, in part, “... A man who can only with the utmost difficulty be considered a benefactor of mankind has died yesterday at Cannes.”

I can only faintly imagine how that felt. Alfred thought of himself as a scientist, as a businessman who’d made a fortune developing products that helped mining, road building and many other industries. Yes, his inventions did make killing his fellow man more efficient on an industrial scale, but that wasn’t how he saw himself.

However, it was how the world saw him.

About a hundred years before Alfred’s premature obituary, the poet Robert Burns was sitting in church behind a grandly dressed lady and happened to spot lice crawling around in her bonnet.

Well, first of all, Bobbie should have been paying attention to the sermon and not noticing his neighbor, which is what my mom would have said to me in similar circumstances. But because Robert was a poet, he used the experience to write his famous poem, “To A Louse.”

Oh, would some Power the gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

It’s considerably more confusing in the Scottish dialect, but the point of the poem is that this lady thought she was the cat’s meow, all dressed in her best and looking good. She had no idea that the people sitting behind her were going, “Oh, mingin’! ” (the approximate eighteenth century Scottish equivalent of “Oh, gross!”).

We have no idea what the grand lady would have done if she’d known about her infestation, but we do know what Alfred did. He set out to change the first line in his obituary. He set aside 94% of his estate, which he didn’t tell his heirs about, but that’s a different, grumpier story, to fund the prizes that now bear his name. He wanted to award people money and fame for advancing civilization.

It worked. Hardly anyone remembers the source of his fortune, but we all know what he did with it. My guess is most people don’t labor their whole life just to win a Nobel Prize, but it certainly has to feel good if you get one.

Personally, I’m fine not knowing how my obituary will read. I just hope it isn’t printed for a while.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson