Stockholm (AFP)

He will remain the patron of the arts, sciences and peace who, before dying on the threshold of the 20th century and his mass murders, turned nitroglycerin into gold.

The Nobel Prizes were born from the will of the Swedish scientist and industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite, to bequeath a large part of his fortune to personalities working for "a better world".

The international prestige of the Nobel is due to the generous amounts they are endowed, currently nine million Swedish kronor (about 830,000 euros), shared by the winners if there are several.

Alfred Nobel had laid down his wishes in a will established in Paris in 1895, a year before his death.

Under the terms of the will, some 31.5 million Swedish kronor, equivalent to 2.2 billion current crowns (about 203 million euros), had been allocated as capital, whose interest had to be redistributed annually. "to those who over the past year have rendered humanity the greatest services".

The will provided that the interest of the invested capital would be distributed as follows: "The first part will be distributed to the author of the discovery or invention the most important in the field of physics, the second to the author of the discovery or the most important invention in chemistry, the third to the author of the most important discovery in physiology or medicine, the fourth to the author of the most outstanding literary work of idealistic inspiration; to the personality who will have most or best contributed to the rapprochement of the peoples, to the suppression or the reduction of the permanent armies, to the meeting or to the propagation of the pacifist congresses ".

- Rich to billion -

Under the law, the will did not designate a legatee for the fortune itself. So, when it was read in January 1897, it was hotly contested by members of the Nobel family.

In addition, Alfred Nobel appointed in his will the different committees that would award the prizes each year: Swedish Academy for Literature, Karolinska Institute for Medicine, Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences for Physics and Chemistry, and a five-member committee specially elected by the Norwegian Parliament for Peace.

But the testator did not explain the procedures that each committee should follow to award the prizes in his discipline.

More than three years passed before the case was settled, by appointing as legatee a Nobel Foundation which would manage the capital of the Nobel prizes while the various committees designated by the will took charge of the awarding of the prizes.

The Nobel Foundation indicates in its annual activity report that the windfall, judiciously invested in high-yielding but "ethically responsible" financial products, amounted to 4.5 billion kroner (415 million euros) at the end of 2017.

In 1968, on the occasion of its tricentennial, the Swedish Riksbank, the world's oldest bank, instituted an economics prize in memory of Alfred Nobel, making available to the Nobel Foundation a sum of equivalent to the amount of the other prices.

Until 1974, it was possible to award the Nobel Prize posthumously. Two Swedes received it: in 1931 for literature with Erik Axel Karlfeldt, and in 1961 for the Nobel Peace Prize which rewarded Dag Hammarskjöld.

© 2019 AFP