Yesterday I went to the Nobel Museum in Stockholm for the release of a book about a 19th century Swedish inventor and industrialist: Gustaf de Laval - ett rastlöst snille by Anders Johnson (GdL - A Restless Genius, http://www.atlantisbok.se/layout/detail.php?id=7823, publ Atlantis in cooperation with Centre for History of Business). de Laval (1845-1913) was one of the great inventors that emerged in Sweden in the later half of the 19th Century, together with eg Alfred Nobel (dynamite), LM Ericsson (telephones), GE Pasch (the safety match), J Wenström (three phase electricity), JP Johansson (the monkey wrench), J Ericsson (propeller, gun turret - though he was active in the US), and others. For the book Johnson has been able to study eg the 30 shelf-metres of de Laval's left over papers, held by the Stockholm Technical Museum. Letters, articles and maybe most important de Laval's many sketch books where his dynamic mind scribble and doodle his many ideas. de Laval's biggest inventions was in steam power and farming. He invented the first successful milk-cream separator, which was the basis for his company Alfa Laval, which still exists. But his biggest contribution was probably his three inventions for practical steam turbine power. He invented a free-floating axis that made high rpm:s possible, the V-gear that could extract the high-rpm power and most importantly the de Laval nozzle that gave steam supersonic speed. This nozzle is still the basis for today's rocket nozzles. He became a civil engineer at the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm but also studied at Uppsala University and earned a PhD. His family was 17th Century hugenot imigrants and nobility. de Laval was also for a period elected to the upper chamber of the Swedish parliament, where he as a conservative and nationalist was a fierce opponent to free trade. According to the book's author it seems that de Laval's vision and main driving force was to improve Swedish economy. An example: At one point de Laval obtained the waterfall rights to a main river, for building a hydro power station. The government objected and sued, saying it was ancient "royal rights" (ie the government's). The government won after a ruling by the Supreme Court, but de Laval's comment was only (approx) "Well, it was good that the rights went to Sweden", as opposed to some foreign investor). de Laval's ambitions perhaps made him spread his energies to too many projects. He founded 37 companies of which most went bust. Alfa Laval still exists, in health, as well as the farming eqiupment company De Laval; parts of Volvo and Siemens are from companies he founded (and they bought, later). Despite what this Wikipedia article says he wasn't a too successful businessman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_de_Laval). He built hydroplane boats that sunk, but dreamt that they'd be able to cross the Atlantic in a couple of days. He founded an inventor centre, a mini-version of Edison's Menlo Park perhaps, employing up to 70 engineers. But when he died of cancer in 1913 he had debts of around 1 million dollars (a huge amount then!). Despite his many inventions he was several times close to bankruptcy. Still, his memory and his inventions live on. Today all electricity from coal, oil and nuclear power plants rely on de Laval's contributions. And I guess that gas turbines, as in modern jets, should give a hat tip or two to de Laval's insights into turbine power. Not to forget that his nozzle drives the exploration of space... After the book presentation, by the author Anders Johnson (which was very good!), there was mingling with drinks and snacks. A big group of de Laval's today living relatives were present, including Gustaf de Laval's granddaughter! I talked to some of them and they are of course proud of their famous ancestor, despite that he wasn't much of a businessman and that the descendants didn't become rich. One of them now studies to become an engineer. The Nobel Museum will by the way in 2018 move to a new, much bigger location (it is now in the old Stock Exchange house, with too little space). A Nobel Centre of 20 000 square metres will be built, close to the National Museum. Plans include a big auditorium, to move the prize ceremonies there (from the Concert Hall which is used today). The big Nobel banquet will however remain in the beautiful City Hall. At one point de Laval took a young inventor named Gustaf Dalén under his wings. The year before de Laval's death Dalén won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his several inventions in lighthouse technology. --Ahrvid Ps. BTW, it was just a few days ago that the IgNobel Prizes were presented... CC: to the SKRIVA list and the book's author too. -- ahrvid@xxxxxxxxxxx / Follow @SFJournalen on Twitter for the latest news in short form! / Gå med i SKRIVA - för författande, sf, fantasy, kultur (skriva-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, subj: subscribe) info www.skriva.bravewriting.com / Om Ahrvids novellsamling Mord på månen: http://zenzat.wordpress.com/bocker C Fuglesang: "stor förnöjelse...jättebra historier i mycket sannolik framtidsmiljö"! /Nu som ljudbok: http://elib.se/ebook_detail.asp?id_type=ISBN&id=9186081462 / Läs även AE i nya E-antologin Sista resan http://www.welaforlag.se/ebok.htm#sistaresan / YXSKAFTBUD, GE VÅR WCZONMÖ IQ-HJÄLP! 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