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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Short Stories for Teachers

The Man Who Established the Nobel Prize Awards - Spencer Nobel
By:Shawna S. Ruppert

Alfred Nobel became one of the richest men around during his lifetime, and he would use his fortune to establish the awards named after him in order to continue to inspire and credit those who worked tirelessly in the most important fields that had the potential to benefit the entire world. Alfred Nobel trivia mentions that in addition the legacy he left behind in the form of the Nobel prizes, he also made many different contributions during his own life time. He was an inventor of sorts, as was his father (the inventor of plywood) and was born in Stockholm.

An Alfred Nobel quiz will show that he was much involved in the arms trade and in munitions, and it was in that industry that he amassed much of his fortune; however, his greatest invention was the ability to store nitro-glycerin in a safer form, and to safely manufacture it. The result was dynamite, which made the powerful explosive much easier to handle and transport than it had been before.

It was a year before his death that Alfred Nobel trivia notes that he established the provisions in his will that would create the Nobel prizes after his death. There is no prize more prestigious than those in the fields that they are awarded in. The Nobel prizes are currently given in the categories of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace, and Economics. Nobel had a reputation as being a death dealer, someone whose inventions had made mass violence possible on entirely new scales, and he wanted to leave a more lasting and positive legacy after his death, which lead him to create the criteria for, and leave the money behind which would fund, the prizes.

There is an interesting footnote for an Alfred Nobel quiz which has occurred within the last decade. Nobel himself set out the categories which the prizes would originally be given for, as well as helping to establish the rules and criteria under which they would be awarded. However, later in time, the governing committee of the Nobel prizes decided to add the award for economics. In 2001, a descendent of Nobel's, a great grand nephew, contested that this award should not actually be called a Nobel Prize due to the fact that his ancestor left no instructions whatsoever that would provide for the inclusion of the additional award. Its official name was changed to state that it is "In memory of Alfred Nobel" rather than one of the true Nobel prizes.

Masters of Trivia is a website dedicated to trivia games and quizzes that cover several different areas of interest. The various trivia questions available on the site can be easily accessed and played by going to http://www.mastersoftrivia.com.






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