 Some of its foremost members are Immanuel Nobel, the younger, engineer developer of underwater naval mines and inventor of the rotary lathe used to produce plywood, Ludvig Nobel, the founder of Branobel and one of the richest and most important men in Russia at his time, and Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who left the major part of his estate to the creation of the Nobel Prizes.The Nobel family originated from the village of Östra Nöbbelöv in Scania, hence the name.The first member was Petrus Olai Nobelius (1655–1707) who married Wendela Rudbeck (1668–1710), daughter of the famous Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck the Elder, also known as Olof Rudbeck.