14. The letter bore a stamped, rather than written, signature.
15. Contacting the Museum; Smith Centre, National Science Museum,
Exhibition Rd, London SW7 2DD, and National Science Museum, Blythe
House, 23 Blythe Road, London, W14 0XQ.
16. From a BBC News report, 21 March 2014, in northern France.
17. Probably a classic example of ‘paralysis by analysis’.
18. All the theoretical aspects had been ‘put to bed’ by the time ‘Bestimmung’ had
been published in 1908 (Chap. 6). As for the machine, the components
necessary and their behaviours were well understood when construction
began. There was no more theoretical work to be done - just engineering.
Almost always the most difficult part.
19. Of those who have recounted the story of ‘fixation’, Patrick Coffey,
(Cathedrals of Science. Oxford University Press, (2008)), is the only one who
has recognised Le Rossignol as the principal project engineer at Karlsruhe,
although he provides no evidence to support his view. But he incorrectly
involves Kirchenbauer with the design of the high-pressure conical valves.
There is of course no mention of Kirchenbauer in Roberts patent (Chap. 8),
neither is there any evidence to suggest he received monies from Robert’s
Gebrausmuster.
20. Robert’s painstaking work for the Hamburg (Chap. 5) and ‘Bestimmung’
(Chap. 6) papers accurately established the temperature/pressure characteristic of the ammonia equilibrium and formed the experimental basis of what
the world came to know as the ‘Haber Process’. But there is a distinction to
be made between the process and the technology. The process is simply a
concept, a specification, which tells us broadly what has to be achieved;
ideally this specification accounts for every possible way of implementing the
process and for ‘fixation’ it was described in the ‘high pressure’ and ‘circulation’ patents submitted jointly by both men. These suggested a way of
making synthetic ammonia viz, circulate a stoichiometric
mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen at high pressure in a
closed system, pass it over a catalyst, remove the
ammonia formed and refresh and recycle the unused
gases. The ‘energy balanced’ machine built by Robert Le Rossignol at
Karlsruhe was an efficient implementation of this process showing how it
could be achieved, and it represented the creation of a model of one form of
the technology.
21. Could it be uranium oxide? Maybe another element say iron. Or it could
have been that they were aware of the difficulty with osmium—Jaenicke’s
description is too vague to pinpoint the oxide in question.
22. See for example Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber. Chemist, Noble Laureate,
German, Jew. Chemical Heritage Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (2004),
p. 72.
23. The Times, ‘Deaths’, Wednesday 18 May 1960.
18 Penn, Buckinghamshire 1949–1976
497
15. Contacting the Museum; Smith Centre, National Science Museum,
Exhibition Rd, London SW7 2DD, and National Science Museum, Blythe
House, 23 Blythe Road, London, W14 0XQ.
16. From a BBC News report, 21 March 2014, in northern France.
17. Probably a classic example of ‘paralysis by analysis’.
18. All the theoretical aspects had been ‘put to bed’ by the time ‘Bestimmung’ had
been published in 1908 (Chap. 6). As for the machine, the components
necessary and their behaviours were well understood when construction
began. There was no more theoretical work to be done - just engineering.
Almost always the most difficult part.
19. Of those who have recounted the story of ‘fixation’, Patrick Coffey,
(Cathedrals of Science. Oxford University Press, (2008)), is the only one who
has recognised Le Rossignol as the principal project engineer at Karlsruhe,
although he provides no evidence to support his view. But he incorrectly
involves Kirchenbauer with the design of the high-pressure conical valves.
There is of course no mention of Kirchenbauer in Roberts patent (Chap. 8),
neither is there any evidence to suggest he received monies from Robert’s
Gebrausmuster.
20. Robert’s painstaking work for the Hamburg (Chap. 5) and ‘Bestimmung’
(Chap. 6) papers accurately established the temperature/pressure characteristic of the ammonia equilibrium and formed the experimental basis of what
the world came to know as the ‘Haber Process’. But there is a distinction to
be made between the process and the technology. The process is simply a
concept, a specification, which tells us broadly what has to be achieved;
ideally this specification accounts for every possible way of implementing the
process and for ‘fixation’ it was described in the ‘high pressure’ and ‘circulation’ patents submitted jointly by both men. These suggested a way of
making synthetic ammonia viz, circulate a stoichiometric
mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen at high pressure in a
closed system, pass it over a catalyst, remove the
ammonia formed and refresh and recycle the unused
gases. The ‘energy balanced’ machine built by Robert Le Rossignol at
Karlsruhe was an efficient implementation of this process showing how it
could be achieved, and it represented the creation of a model of one form of
the technology.
21. Could it be uranium oxide? Maybe another element say iron. Or it could
have been that they were aware of the difficulty with osmium—Jaenicke’s
description is too vague to pinpoint the oxide in question.
22. See for example Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber. Chemist, Noble Laureate,
German, Jew. Chemical Heritage Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (2004),
p. 72.
23. The Times, ‘Deaths’, Wednesday 18 May 1960.
18 Penn, Buckinghamshire 1949–1976
497