Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), the younger, was a Swedish engineer, architect, inventor and industrialist. He was the inventor of the rotary lathe used in plywood manufacturing. He was a member of the Nobel family and the father of Robert Nobel, Ludvig Nobel and Alfred Nobel. He also often experimented with nitroglycerin with his sons, which led to his son, Emil Oskar Nobel's, death because of an explosion at his father's factory Heleneborg in Stockholm in 1864.
Nobel moved to Russia from Sweden in 1838, to sell his inventions in St. Petersburg, where he lived for two decades with his family. Among his successful creations was an improved version of an underwater exploding mine that personally interested Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Immanuel founded a war supplies factory, Fonderies et Ateliers Mécaniques Nobel Fils, which turned out to be a very profitable business. However, the death of Nicholas I in 1855 and the end of the Crimean War in 1856 brought about a shift in Russian policies and the new Tsar Alexander II ordered a severe cut in the military budget that eventually placed Immanuel's company in serious economic difficulties. In 1859, the technical management of Nobel Fils was passed to Immanuel's son Ludvig and the former returned to Sweden. In 1862, Immanuel's firm was finally sold by his creditors.
Famous quotes containing the words immanuel and/or nobel:
“Dylan used to sound like a lung cancer victim singing Woody Guthrie. Now he sounds like a Rolling Stone singing Immanuel Kant.”
—Also quoted in Robert Shelton, No Direction Home, ch. 2, “Prophet Without Honor” (1986)
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)