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CORVALLIS - Tore Frangsmyr, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, will present a free, public lecture on Thursday, Nov. 11, at Oregon State University on the legacy of scientist and industrialist Alfred Nobel.

The event, part of OSU's Horning Lecture Series, will begin at 4 p.m. in Memorial Union 206. A professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, Frangsmyr specializes in the history of science. In his lecture, "Alfred Nobel: Technician, Inventor, Donor," he will discuss how Nobel became a chemist, engineer and industrialist, inventing dynamite and other explosives. After building a financial empire, Nobel was courted by governments and politicians.

Nobel, ironically, dreamed that the power of his explosives would lead to the end of wars and, before his death in 1896, he willed his fortune to a fund for scientific and cultural prizes. The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901; a centennial celebration is scheduled in Sweden in 2001.

Frangsmyr is editor of "Les Prix Nobel," the yearbook of the Nobel Foundation, and director of the Center for the History of Science at the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

This is the second event in the OSU Horning Endowment in the Humanities 1999-2000 lecture series, "Science and Politics Past and Present."

Note to Editors: There is an umlaut over the "a" in Frangsmyr.