Yellow | Alfred Nobel & The Nobel Prize | ‘23 British Open
Coldplay’s Yellow was released June 26, ‘00. The song was the band’s first real hit song as it soared to #4 on UK Charts, #9 in Ireland, and #48 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Coldplay came up with the opening lines after looking up at the night sky. They were recording at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales, where Queen famously recorded "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975, Oasis recorded “Wonderwall”, and Ozzy Osbourne claims as the birthplace of heavy metal. (Source: BBC News)
Chris Martin allegedly wrote this song in 10 minutes after the band came up with the opening lines, “This song just came out of the blue one night in Wales. Originally, it sounded like a Neil Young song, but it was missing this keyword, and it used to go, ‘Look at the stars, look how they shine for you/And all the things you do…’, and there was this gap. So I was sitting there singing the song and I looked to the nearest book to me, and it was the Yellow Pages. In an alternate universe, this song would be called ‘Playboy.’”(Source: VH1's Storytellers series)
For more context, Chris Martin’s microphone was broken while they were recording which led to him messing around with his Neil Young impression, which was only for a laugh. It does not appear he wrote the song for anybody in particular. (Source: Howard Stern Show)
Many Americans first heard this song when ABC used it for on-air promos as part of a campaign featuring bright yellow backgrounds. Coldplay was initially pissed off about this but Chris Martin would go on to say, "We were young and quite honestly didn't even know what ABC-TV was or what they were planning to do with the song."
@YouTheReader I didn’t draw a line, I just was playing around on my phone this time last year when I came up with the Week to Week Notes logo. It was almost all yellow.
I’m not usually a huge color symbolism guy but yellow is the lightest hue on the spectrum. It can signify joy, happiness, betrayal, optimism, caution, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard, and friendship. (Source: George Mason University)
Selfishly I’d like to think of the yellow that I stumbled along with my fat fingers as identifying as joy & optimism, but I guess I’ll admit to being a bit yellow journalistic at times too.
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the 4th son of Immanuel and Caroline Nobel. His father Immanuel was an inventor and engineer who invented plywood by realizing that several thinner layers of wood bonded together would be stronger than one single thick layer of wood. He came up with the rotary lathe used in plywood manufacturing. (Source: Plywood History) Alfred’s father would move from Sweden to St. Petersburg, Russia in 1837 where he would sell inventions, and Alfred with the rest of his family would move to Russia in 1842.
By the time he was 16 years old, Alfie Nobel was fluent in English, French, German, and Russian as well as Swedish. This was useful because in 1850 he would go to study chemistry in Paris with Professor T. J. Pelouze. Next Alfie Nobel visited the US where he met Swedish-American engineer, John Ericcson, who is responsible for the screw propeller for ships. In 1852, Immanuel Nobel asked Alfie Nobel to come back to St. Petersburg to work for him at his new manufacturing company which was booming because it was making military equipment during the Crimean War. The Nobel family started experimenting with nitroglycerine but was unsuccessful. The Crimean War lasted from 1853 to 1856 and the players involved were Russia vs the Ottoman Empire, France, & UK. This war happened to be the first of its kind to feature news correspondents and battlefield photographers. Russia lost the Crimean War which eventually led the czarist government to sell Alaska to the United States (not until 1867) because the czars needed gold to pay off the war debts. Once the war had wrapped up in 1856, the Nobel family had difficulties switching to peacetime production and as a result, the Nobel family business went bankrupt in 1859.
Once his parents left St. Petersburg, Alfie Nobel started to really focus on mechanical and chemical engineering. With his father’s failure in mind, Nobel was able to cause nitroglycerine to explode underwater in the spring of 1862. This led to Alfie going all in on explosives so he built a small factory to manufacture nitroglycerin and then invented an improved detonator called a blasting cap which gave way to modern use of high explosives. In 1864, Alfie Nobel’s factory blew up killing his younger brother Emil and others. Undeterred by the tragedy, Nobel built up more manufacturing factories which led to his 2nd invention, dynamite in 1867. Alfie Nobel named his new product “dynamite” after the Greek word dynamic which means “power.” Of course, the United States and Great Britain were all in on this new explosive invention so they granted Nobel patents for dynamite in 1867. Dynamite was what made Alfred Nobel famous worldwide and it was used for blasting tunnels, cutting canals, and building railways & roads as the United States expanded Westward.
Alfred Nobel’s famed dynamite led him to launch more factories and laboratories in at least 90 different places in more than 20 countries. The man was always traveling, Nobel was described by Victor Hugo (French writer) as, “Europe’s richest vagabond.” @Fellas vagabond means wanderer, I Googled it. Alfred Nobel patented 355 inventions like artificial silk and leather but nothing as explosive as his first two, the blasting cap and dynamite.
Although Alfred Nobel was a declared pacifist, his inventions clearly made war more devastating. His claim was that the destructive powers of his inventions would bring an end to war. At the time of his death in 1896, Alfred Nobel owned more than 90 factories that manufactured explosives and ammunition. In his will, he surprised his family, friends, and the general public when he left the bulk of his fortune in a trust to establish the Nobel Peace Prize. While the reason why Alfred Nobel came up with the idea is not certain, many speculate that it may have been influenced by what occurred in 1888 when one of his brothers died and one French paper mistook it as Alfred Nobel. The headline of the paper read: “Le marchand de la mort est mort” or “The merchant of death is dead.”
Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded to the person who had done most for "fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". The Nobel Prizes include not only Peace but Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and Physiology or Medicine. From 1901 to ‘22, the Nobel Prize has been awarded 103 times to 140 recipients (110 individuals and 30 organizations.) The first two recipients of the award were Jean Henry Dunant, who founded The Red Cross, and Frédéric Passy, a French pacifist who covered the Crimean War.
Some Noted Americans Nobel Prize Winners
- President Teddy Roosevelt (1906): Negotiating the Russo-Japanese War.
- President Woodrow Wilson (1919): Founding the League of Nations post WWI.
- Jane Adams (1931): Women’s suffrage leader and founder of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919.
- Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1945): Role in creating the United Nations post WWII.
- General George Catlett Marshall (1953): Originated the Marshall Plan to bring about European recovery after WWII as a way to fend off the Soviet Union.
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1964): The Civil Rights Movement, “I had a dream” speech took place the summer prior.
- Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger (1973): For his negotiating of a cease-fire agreement to end the Vietnam War.
- President Jimmy Carter (‘02): Lifetime award for decades of promoting peace.
- President Barack Obama (‘09): Received less than a year into office for “capturing the world's attention and giving its people hope for a better future.” (Source: Nobel Selection Committee)
Some Noted Irish Nobel Prize Winners
- William Butler Yeats (1923)
- George Bernard Shaw (1925)
- Samuel Beckett (1969)
- Séamus Heaney (1995)
All 4 of them were Nobel Laureates in Literature. I believe Arthur Guinness should receive a posthumous Nobel Prize but what the hell do I know?
‘23 British Open
Hoylake, England | Royal Liverpool GC | $16,500,000 (Purse) | GOLF/NBC
Brian Harman
Up 5 strokes with 18 holes left to play, Brian Harman is a solid round of golf away from the biggest win of his life. The Georgia Bulldog alum is enjoying the moment, after Round 3 he said, "Someone once told me one time you should do the things that make you lose track of time. A lot of times when I'm practicing, hitting balls, or putting when I'm at home, I lose track of time. That's how I know that I really enjoy it. It's just an enjoyable profession that I have." (Source: @KylePorterCBS)
Cameron Young
Cameron Young got off to a hot start on the front 9 yesterday going 3 under. He’ll be paired up with the leader and will have to take a ton of chances if he wants to overtake Harman.
Jon Rahm
Jon Rahm shot a Royal Liverpool record round of 63. It is the lowest round in which The Open has been hosted at Hoylacke. I’m sure at some point some English bloke down the street claims he’s shot below a 63 - they have been playing at Hoylake since 1869 so that shouldn’t surprise you. Rahm came out of nowhere birdieing 7 of his last 10 holes. When asked about his performance Rahm said, “I’ve done what I’ve needed which is give myself an opportunity.”
Tommy Fleetwood
Tommy Fleetwood has had the crowd behind him all week but has not been able to take advantage of it since his hot start on Thursday. The Hometown Hero seems to have lost a bit of momentum but I’m sure this will be a memorable weekend for him regardless.
Viktor Hovland
Viktor Hovland closed out his Saturday round with a 24-foot birdie. There is always that one shot that gets you back on the golf course, that and the fact for these guys are competing for their portion of the $16.5 million purse.