Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World

by Vaclav Smil

But amid all these developments, we must single out the momentous innovation that allowed a blockaded Germany to endure its two-front war for four years: the synthesis of ammonia. When the war began, the British navy cut Germany off from imports of Chilean nitrates needed to produce explosives. But thanks to a remarkable coincidence, Germany could instead supply itself with homemade nitrates. In 1909, Fritz Haber, a professor at the University of Karlsruhe, had ended the long-running quest for synthesizing ammonia from its elements.

Human minds have many irrational preferences: we love to speculate about wild and crazy innovations but cannot be bothered to fix common challenges by relying on practical innovation waiting to be implemented. Why do we not improve the boarding of planes rather than delude ourselves with visions of hyperloop trains and eternal life? fuels and electricity Energizing Our Societies