Fritz Haber and the Double-edged Sword of Synthetic Nitrogen II

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Lead: In the early 20th century German chemist Fritz Haber developed the process leading to the creation of synthetic nitrogen. His brilliant innovation, however, is very much a double-edged sword.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After his initial breakthrough for which he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918, Haber was made the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin. With the outbreak of World War I, he led in the development of poison gas. His motives appear to be mixed, partly emerging out of intense German patriotism, but also in hopes that the use of gas would hasten the end of the bloodletting. He returned home greatly disappointed in the war’s result, but also conflicted over his own role in the use of chemical weapons. Haber’s wife committed suicide shortly thereafter, it is said partly in revulsion over her husband’s complicity in the wartime carnage. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, as an ethnic Jew, he saw that even his long-time loyal service to Germany would not protect him against the coming barbarity and accepted a post in Cambridge, England. He died in obscurity in 1934.

 

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Fritz Haber and the Double-Edged Sword of Synthetic Nitrogen I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: By 1900 world population was beginning to outstrip agricultural capacity. Farmers could not grow enough to feed the people. Then Fritz Haber solved the nitrogen problem.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The three main nutrients required for successfully growing plants are potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen. Good top soil contains them in sufficient amounts to grow crops, but after long use, soil becomes depleted of these ingredients and must be renewed. Potassium and phosphorus are economically available in sufficient quantities to be put back easily, but nitrogen is not. Nitrogen is in the air. It is a gas that is a large part of the atmosphere. Getting it into the soil for plant synthesis is very difficult. Traditional farmers added plant clippings and animal waste, rotated crops or planted legumes such as beans or lintels, so-called green manure, to restore the soil and increase yields. Traditional agriculture could not keep up with an exploding world population. Farmers were losing the battle.

 

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Marie Sklodowska Curie I – A Personal Word from Dan Roberts

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Lead: In 1937 Marie Curie died of leukemia caused in part by her long exposure to radiation seeking to determine its value in medical treatments. Today I would like to share a personal word.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: In the quarter century I have written and related these narratives as a public historian I have avoided making myself the focus of the story. Nevertheless, recently many loyal and supportive listeners have expressed concern about a perceived change in the quality of my voice. They are correct to have noticed this change. Perhaps the struggle of Madame Curie is a good platform to explore the value and challenges associated with radiation.

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Suppression of Galileo II

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Lead: Condemned in 1632, the Italian scientist was not given reprieve until 1993.

Intro.: "A Moment in Time" with Dan Roberts.

Content: Galileo, the Italian mathematician and astronomer, believed along with the Polish scholar Copernicus' that the earth revolved around the sun. The Roman Catholic Church disagreed. It taught that the earth was the center of the universe and in 1616 told Galileo to cease and disist his teachings on the subject. In 1624 there was a new pope, he was a long time friend and protector of Galileo and the scientist thought that perhaps a personal appeal would bring him some relief. He felt that it was dangerous for the church to champion a position so vulnerable to scientific evidence, that if people found themselves convinced by proof of something that it was made a sin to believe, they would reject the church's teachings in other areas and perhaps even attracted to the new Protestant ideas coming from Martin Luther in northern Germany.

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Suppression of Galileo I

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Lead: Few early scientists contributed as much to the understanding of the way the universe works as Galileo but in his lifetime he was not popular.

Intro.: "A Moment in Time" with Dan Roberts.

Content: Galileo Galilei was the son of a poor nobleman and destined for a medical career. Yet, while at the University of Pisa in northern Italy, he became fascinated with mathematics and by 1589 was teaching at the University level. Fairly early in his career, he came to believe the theory taught by the Polish mathematician Copernicus that the planets revolve around the sun, but was hesitant to teach this openly because of the almost universal acceptance of the older theory which placed the earth of the center of the universe.

 

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Edison vs. Westinghouse I

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Lead: One of the great struggles in the history of technology was that between Thomas Alva Edison and George Westinghouse.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The use of electricity as a means of lighting homes, businesses and streets was in its infancy in the early 1880s. Thomas Edison had improved the incandescent light bulb and was hard at work constructing the power system for the City of New York. To get the power from generating power plants out to the customers, he used direct current which can be compared to a water flowing in a pipe. Power goes in one direction at a constantly low voltage over wiring that was very expensive so as to not blow out the light bulbs waiting for power down the circuit.

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The Challenger Disaster

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Lead: In early 1986, after years of almost unblemished success in its space shuttle program, NASA got ready to launch number twenty-five. This time it would welcome the first civilian. School teacher Christa McAuliffe would ride into space on the Challenger.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The winter of 1985-86 was unusually cold on the central Florida Atlantic coast. During the night of January 27th Cape Canaveral was swept with an ice storm, but dawn on the 28th was clear and as the morning continued the sky became a brilliant cloudless blue. After fits and starts, McAuliffe and the other six members of the crew were photographed, climbed aboard the shuttle and prepared for launch.

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Scopes Monkey Trial III

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Lead: In the hot summer of 1925 the State of Tennessee prosecuted John Thomas Scopes for teaching the theory of evolution.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: While a believer in evolution, Scopes merely made his students aware of Darwin's theory in the run-up to their end-of-the-year examinations. At stake was the constitutionality of the Butler Act, Tennessee's statute outlawing teaching anything contrary to the Bible.

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