7
Taking Care of Business
Haber’s contracts with the BASF and Le Rossignol
To every man is given the key to the gates of Heaven.
The same key opens the gates of Hell.
An old Buddhist saying.
7.1 Money
Scientific progress occurs in a variety of ways, but there is no doubt that
throughout history, progress has always favoured the ‘prepared mind’.
Sometimes, progress involves a romantic ‘eureka’ moment when a single—
often unexpected—event allows the mind to instantly ‘crystallise’ its understanding, and although such romance did not contribute to the success
eventually achieved by Haber and Le Rossignol, a ‘prepared mind’ certainly
did, ‘prepared’ by two years of painstaking laboratory work and the barbs of
professional criticism in extremis. But the men’s work did not just prepare
their minds, it led to a burgeoning of their relationship. Haber of course was
eclectic and theoretically astute, Robert was his ‘true engineer’
1 and crucially
by now the two men shared a common language,
2 allowing the efficient
communication of ideas and strategies. They complemented one another
perfectly, and just as Abegg had sown the seeds of a career in physical
chemistry in Haber’s mind, so too did Robert’s work convince him that a
solution to the ammonia problem might just be achievable. But even as the
thought crossed his mind, what was Haber to do about it? There were
obvious barriers to nitrogen fixation via ammonia; the need for seemingly
unachievable levels of pressure and the discovery of a catalyst that could work
at temperatures low enough to produce industrially appealing amounts of
ammonia (around 10%). Maybe Haber was not too discouraged by pressure,
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_7
145
Taking Care of Business
Haber’s contracts with the BASF and Le Rossignol
To every man is given the key to the gates of Heaven.
The same key opens the gates of Hell.
An old Buddhist saying.
7.1 Money
Scientific progress occurs in a variety of ways, but there is no doubt that
throughout history, progress has always favoured the ‘prepared mind’.
Sometimes, progress involves a romantic ‘eureka’ moment when a single—
often unexpected—event allows the mind to instantly ‘crystallise’ its understanding, and although such romance did not contribute to the success
eventually achieved by Haber and Le Rossignol, a ‘prepared mind’ certainly
did, ‘prepared’ by two years of painstaking laboratory work and the barbs of
professional criticism in extremis. But the men’s work did not just prepare
their minds, it led to a burgeoning of their relationship. Haber of course was
eclectic and theoretically astute, Robert was his ‘true engineer’
1 and crucially
by now the two men shared a common language,
2 allowing the efficient
communication of ideas and strategies. They complemented one another
perfectly, and just as Abegg had sown the seeds of a career in physical
chemistry in Haber’s mind, so too did Robert’s work convince him that a
solution to the ammonia problem might just be achievable. But even as the
thought crossed his mind, what was Haber to do about it? There were
obvious barriers to nitrogen fixation via ammonia; the need for seemingly
unachievable levels of pressure and the discovery of a catalyst that could work
at temperatures low enough to produce industrially appealing amounts of
ammonia (around 10%). Maybe Haber was not too discouraged by pressure,
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_7
145