5
Hamburg, 12 May 1907
Herr Geheimrat Regierungsrat, Prof. Dr. Hermann Walther Nernst.
The Bunsen Society Meeting
1
I don’t like to say too much. Haber missed the equilibrium by just a little bit.
Nernst was not a pleasant gentleman. [In a letter] he told Haber all his work
was wrong. And Haber was afraid to publish it …
Robert Le Rossignol in conversation with Johannes Jaenicke in 1959 regarding
Haber’s confrontation with Nernst at Hamburg.
2
5.1 Approaching the Ammonia Equilibrium
After writing to Haber with his concerns, Nernst and his assistant Fritz Jost
spent the next six months examining the ammonia equilibrium themselves
using a small pressurised electric oven specially designed by him and capable
of being heated to 2000 °C, the entire unit being immersed in a large water
bath. They did so from the perspective of the decomposition of two moles of
ammonia, according to;
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_5
109