Alfred Nobel's Will Now on Public Display

I have heard that Nobel was a tormented man.  His wealth came from inventing dynamite, which as we all know killed many thousands. Some speculate his Nobel Prizes were in part his trying to make amends.

That's always seemed too easy a story to me, and it doesn't really stand up well. It's true that after his brother died in 1888 and Alfred was mistakenly memorialized and excoriated as "the merchant of death," he became concerned over his reputation and how he would be thought of—and that certainly affected what he wrote in his will.

 

However, to the day of his death he never stopped his active pursuit of more and bigger business for his companies, which not only made explosives, but were also the leading manufacturers of all kinds of armaments. Nor did he, in his will, ask that the businesses cease—and they continue to this day. Bofors, the big Swedish armaments company was one of the companies he owned.

Good question to be put to the Nobel Museum! Wasn't Albert Einstein the person who speculated that?