The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler

by Thomas Hager

As a species we long ago passed the natural ability of the planet to support us with food. Even using the best organic farming practices available, even cutting back our diets to minimal, vegetarian levels, only about four billion of us could live on what the earth and traditional farming supply.

Eight islands in the Pacific claimed under the act still belong to the United States. The Guano Islands Act is still in effect.

dinitrogen or, in chemical shorthand, N2, they refuse all other relationships. The nitrogen bound in this form is inert, dead, unavailable to living things. Everyone breathes in and breathes out lungfuls of N2 all day long and nothing happens.

N2 is held together with a triple bond, the strongest chemical bond in nature. Breaking it and freeing the individual N atoms requires enormous amounts of energy, heat on the order of 1,000°C, intense enough to to melt copper. The only thing in nature hot enough to break apart N2 is a bolt of lightning.

Intermarriage between German Jews and Christians became increasingly common during Haber’s lifetime, rising from 8 percent of Jewish marriages in 1901 to almost 30 percent in 1915.

If there was ever a misconception that scientists are peaceable, Haber dispelled it. He was cold-blooded in his pursuit of victory. “Haber’s actions continued to contradict Montesquieu’s belief that knowledge makes men gentle,” a

a woman devoted to Kinder, Kuchen, Kirche (kids, cooking, and church).

The Germans quickly realized that they were there not to negotiate a peace but to accept one.

“Your friends are not my friends; your inclinations are not mine. Even when we are together, we live for our individual selves, and your attempts to change are as futile as mine. Let us call ten years enough. I can’t do it anymore.”