The legend mentioned in the passage about Alfred Nobel is that Nobel's death had been erroneously reported in a newspaper, and that the focus of the obituary was the fact that Nobel had invented dynamite.
The conditions that must be fulfilled to with the Nobel prize are to invent or discover something that would have the greatest benefit to humanity in a particular year.
He rewrote his will in 1895 to establish the Nobel foundation as the legal owner and administrating agent of the funds and to institute the prizes named after him along with the original amount of nine million dollars.