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

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.