Dynamite
Dinamita
- Date
- 1867 · confidence high
- Place
- Krümmel (Geesthacht), near Hamburg, Germany
- Credited to
- Alfred Nobel
- People
- 👤 Alfred Nobel1833–1896
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Nitroglycerin absorbed into diatomaceous earth (kieselguhr), which made it stable and mouldable into cartridges, detonated with a mercury fulminate cap. It made the use of high-power explosives safe.
Nobel moved to Krümmel after the explosion at his Heleneborg factory (Stockholm, 1864), which killed his brother Emil; the patent dates from 1867 in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
What it led to
- Alpine tunnels (the Gotthard), canals and mountain railways
- Large-scale mining and quarrying
- The Nobel fortune and the Nobel Prizes (1895)
- Anarchist dynamite bombings (1880s-1890s)