it about Fritz Haber that stimulated a young, accomplished, but otherwise
unremarkable British chemist to achieve what he did, helping to make ‘brot
aus luft’, ‘bread from air’ … and change the world.
Notes
1. The term ‘nitrogen fixation’ was introduced into technical language in the
latter part of the nineteenth century. Although the world had no shortage of
elemental nitrogen—the atmosphere contains almost 80% nitrogen in this
form—nitrogen bound to, or fixed chemically, to other atoms in organic or
inorganic compounds was far more useful. The process of achieving the
chemical binding of atmospheric nitrogen was therefore termed ‘fixation’.
Today it is widely accepted that ‘fixation’ was the most important technological advance of the 20th century, allowing the population of the world to
expand from 1.6 billion in 1900 to today’s 7 billion. The statistics are truly
staggering, around 50% of the nitrogen in our bodies can be traced to
factories employing the fixation process and one third of the world’s population is dependent on nitrogen fixation.
2. A description of Haber by Dietrich Stoltzenberg whose family knew him
well. Fritz Haber. Chemist, Noble Laureate, German, Jew. Chemical Heritage
Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (2004). ISBN-0-941901-24-6.
3. Described by Klaus Nippert, Archivist at Karlsruhe University, in Chris
Bowlby’s BBC Radio 4 production, The Chemist of Life and Death, broadcast
on 13 April 2011. Nippert goes further, describing how students often cover
over Haber’s name on Fritz Haber-Weg in Karlsruhe and replace it with
‘Clara Immerwahr’, his first wife, herself a chemist and deeply opposed to
chemical warfare.
4. Strictly, the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, but
dependencies under the Crown. But islanders are British nationals.
5. See for example, Fred Aftalion and Otto Theodor Benfey, A History of the
International Chemical Industry, University of Pennsylvania Press, (1991).
ISBN-10 0812282078, ISBN-13 9780812282078, p. 88.
6. The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland to which I am indebted for
my modest understanding of the Huguenots. http://huguenotsociety.org.uk/
history/.
7. A common story amongst those interested in Jersey history. Follow this
typical link; http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/channel-islands/
2000-03/0952382225.
8. Notice Le Bailly, ‘dressed as a ‘peasant’, suggesting that he was really much
more grand than that!
9. Communication by email with Anna Baghiani, education officer at the
Société Jersiaise op. cit. (note 15) in 2009, who kindly spoke to family
members regarding a query of mine.
32
D. Sheppard
unremarkable British chemist to achieve what he did, helping to make ‘brot
aus luft’, ‘bread from air’ … and change the world.
Notes
1. The term ‘nitrogen fixation’ was introduced into technical language in the
latter part of the nineteenth century. Although the world had no shortage of
elemental nitrogen—the atmosphere contains almost 80% nitrogen in this
form—nitrogen bound to, or fixed chemically, to other atoms in organic or
inorganic compounds was far more useful. The process of achieving the
chemical binding of atmospheric nitrogen was therefore termed ‘fixation’.
Today it is widely accepted that ‘fixation’ was the most important technological advance of the 20th century, allowing the population of the world to
expand from 1.6 billion in 1900 to today’s 7 billion. The statistics are truly
staggering, around 50% of the nitrogen in our bodies can be traced to
factories employing the fixation process and one third of the world’s population is dependent on nitrogen fixation.
2. A description of Haber by Dietrich Stoltzenberg whose family knew him
well. Fritz Haber. Chemist, Noble Laureate, German, Jew. Chemical Heritage
Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (2004). ISBN-0-941901-24-6.
3. Described by Klaus Nippert, Archivist at Karlsruhe University, in Chris
Bowlby’s BBC Radio 4 production, The Chemist of Life and Death, broadcast
on 13 April 2011. Nippert goes further, describing how students often cover
over Haber’s name on Fritz Haber-Weg in Karlsruhe and replace it with
‘Clara Immerwahr’, his first wife, herself a chemist and deeply opposed to
chemical warfare.
4. Strictly, the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, but
dependencies under the Crown. But islanders are British nationals.
5. See for example, Fred Aftalion and Otto Theodor Benfey, A History of the
International Chemical Industry, University of Pennsylvania Press, (1991).
ISBN-10 0812282078, ISBN-13 9780812282078, p. 88.
6. The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland to which I am indebted for
my modest understanding of the Huguenots. http://huguenotsociety.org.uk/
history/.
7. A common story amongst those interested in Jersey history. Follow this
typical link; http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/channel-islands/
2000-03/0952382225.
8. Notice Le Bailly, ‘dressed as a ‘peasant’, suggesting that he was really much
more grand than that!
9. Communication by email with Anna Baghiani, education officer at the
Société Jersiaise op. cit. (note 15) in 2009, who kindly spoke to family
members regarding a query of mine.
32
D. Sheppard