FRITZ HABER THE MAN WHO SAVED BILLIONS AND KILLED THOUSANDS
THE STORY OF THE 1918 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER AND HIS INVENTION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Who is Fritz Haber?
Fritz Haber is a genius chemist born in Germany in 1868, He saved more lives in human history more than anyone else his invention saved billions, He received a Nobel prize for chemistry in 1918 for solving one of the biggest problems humanity has ever faced, his invention is one of the reasons there are 7 billion people on this planet today but many of his fellow scientists refused to attend the ceremony, Two of the 1919 Nobel prize winners(economics and medicine) rejected their prize in protest.
Fritz Haber's Invention that changed the world:
Before we dive into Haber’s invention let’s talk about nitrogen, Nitrogen is essential for all life forms on earth we get the amount of Nitrogen that our body needs from plants or from animals who have eaten plants, Plants get their nitrogen from the soil.
Nitrogen is an essential element for plants to grow the problem is if you farm the soil year after year you harvest the nitrogen (and other essential minerals like phosphor and potassium…) out of it eventually there is no nitrogen left for the plants to grow. Nitrogen deficiency means immature plants and smaller yields, which means humanity was standing in deadly peril of not having enough food to eat if this situation continues for 20 or 30 years people will die of starvation.
The solution to this horrible problem is to add nitrogen to the soil, this might sound easy but here’s the thing nitrogen is common in nature but it’s in a form that plants can’t use, so chemists since 1800’s have been trying to solve this problem by making Ammonia which is a compound of Nitrogen and Hydrogen but all of them failed.
Hundred years later (1904) Fritz Haber was interested in solving this problem at the time he was an academic at the University of Karlsruhe with a long list of failed chemists who tried to solve this problem Fritz's mission seemed impossible at the time.
He spent five years working on this problem he was trying to combine nitrogen with hydrogen at high temperature and high pressure.
After working tirelessly on this project for five years he finally succeeded to make ammonia, He finally made it.
To develop the process on a large-scale Haber partnered with Carl Bosch who was also a German chemist at Germany’s biggest chemical company BASF Shortly after that BASF commercialized Fritz's invention and produced Ammonia on a large scale.
Ammonia and the fertilizers:
Ammonia is one of the most important chemicals today over 85% of the ammonia produced is used to make fertilizers responsible for feeding around 50% of the world’s human population, The ability to produce much larger quantities of nitrogen-based fertilizers in turn supported much greater agricultural yields and prevented billions of people from starving to death, The earth supports 4 billion more people today.
Why these scathing opinions about Fritz Haber?
It all comes down to Haber’s role in WWI when the war started Haber volunteered for military duty, He wanted to use his knowledge in chemistry to help his country, Ammonium nitrate is a double edge sword besides being an excellent fertilizer it’s also a lethal explosive, Haber converted his factories from making ammonia for fertilizers to make ammonium nitrate for explosive to use it for military use.
Later on, he made a chemical weapon (Chlorine) lethal gas that killed thousands, One of his colleagues confronted Haber about his weapon, and Haber said “Innumerable human lives would be saved if the war could be ended more quickly in this way”.
Haber’s wife's death:
Haber was married to Clara Immerwahr she was one the first women to have a Ph.D. in chemistry, Clara didn’t approve of Haber’s contributions in the war, and one night in 1915 when Haber came back to their house after being promoted to captain Clara committed suicide by putting a bullet to her chest that was her way to protest against Haber involvement in the Gas-warfare.
After his wife’s death, Haber continued developing weapons for the military.
Haber's last days:
In 1933 the Nazis came to power and passed a law that all Jewish would be fired from their job Haber was Jewish but his military service exempted him from this law and he resigned from his job in solidarity with the Jewish people.
A year later Haber died in a hotel room in Switzerland of heart failure after struggling with Repeated angina attacks.
I want to conclude with a quote, Isaac Asimov once said “The saddest aspect of society right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom “
I am Open to freelance gigs.
