Despite the simplicity of the molecules involved, the cleavage of the strong nitrogen-nitrogen triple bond (the N;N bond) in dinitrogen and the concomitant formation of nitrogen-hydrogen (N-H) bonds ...poses a difficult challenge for catalytic chemistry, and typically involves conditions that are costly in terms of energy requirements: high reaction temperatures, high pressures or combinations of reactive reagents that are difficult to handle and energy-intensive to make. ...although nitrogenases fix nitrogen at ambient temperatures, they use eight equivalents of protons and electrons per dinitrogen molecule (rather than six, the number needed according to the stoichiometry of the reaction) to provide the necessary thermodynamic driving force for fixation and for other coupled processes6. ...the use of coordination-induced bond weakening provides a new way of fixing nitrogen under ambient conditions that avoids the use of potentially dangerous combinations of proton and electron sources - such combinations can spontaneously ignite.
Fritz Haber (1868–1934) and Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952) were both prominent German‐speaking Jewish chemists with rather divergent views on Jewish assimilation and Zionism that only converged upon the ...rise of the Nazis to power in Germany. While Haber converted to Protestantism and followed the calling of a German patriot during World War One and the turmoil of the Weimar Republic, Weizmann became the leader of the Zionist movement whose efforts led to the founding of Jewish academic institutions in British Mandate Palestine and eventually to the creation of the State of Israel. Weizmann won the support of the British political establishment for the Zionist cause through his invaluable services to the British military as a chemist during World War One. Guided by the timeline of their encounters as well as their mutual correspondence, we trace the ever‐closer relationship between these two towering figures of the 20th century. Had it not been for his ill health, Haber would have likely assumed a leading position at what is today the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot as well as played a direct role in shaping other academic institutions, including The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the future State of Israel.
As part of a teacher training project, 16 future chemistry teachers participated in a dramatisation activity (a mock trial of the Fritz Haber case), in which they discussed a controversy concerning ...an event from the history of science: the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Fritz Haber in 1918. Preparations for the role-play activity, the dramatisation of the mock trial, and the subsequent discussions were video-recorded. We also collected the written material produced by the pre-service teachers and the reflective journals they produced during their involvement with the activity. This article discusses the contributions of such an experience to future teachers’ knowledge on aspects related to both nature of science and argumentation, as well as to their views on their future actions related to authentic teaching of and about science. The results show that such contributions were meaningful.
In 1926, during an economic crisis that severely impacted the mining industry, Guggenheim Brothers, the Guggenheim family business, implemented a new technological system to extract saltpeter from ...the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Known as the Guggenheim system, this cutting-edge technological innovation had a significant impact on regional society and facilitated the introduction of Chilean saltpeter into the global fertilizer market. For this system to succeed, however, it had to incorporate a sociopolitical strategy based on a highly hierarchical and well-controlled labor force. Through their political and cultural influence in the region, the Guggenheim family's industry transformed a remote area into a state periphery, creating new ways of inhabiting the desert within a strict framework in which workers' lives were regulated by company-imposed labor discipline. With more political power than the state, the Guggenheim family sought to suppress any social agency deemed dangerous to the production of saltpeter.
This volume, occasioned by the centenary of the Fritz Haber Institute, formerly the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, covers the institute's scientific and institutional history ...from its founding until the present. The institute was among the earliest established by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, and its inauguration was one of the first steps in the development of Berlin-Dahlem into a center for scientific research. Its establishment was made possible by an endowment from Leopold Koppel, granted on the condition that Fritz Haber, well-known for his discovery of a method to synthesize ammonia from its elements, be made its director. The history of the institute has largely paralleled that of 20th-century Germany. It undertook controversial weapons research during World War I, followed by a "Golden Era" during the 1920s, in spite of financial hardships.
Tim Grady has established himself as one of the foremost authorities on the history of German Jewry during World War I with the publication of his path-breaking 2011 study, The German-Jewish Soldiers ...of the First World War in History and Memory, which exposed how relations between Jews and other Germans did not abruptly end after 1918, but persisted into the Weimar Republic and the early Nazi years, by way of a shared memory culture of World War I. Building on this work, Grady has now produced a comprehensive history of German Jews during World War I, and in doing so, he has made a vital contribution to the field, and not just in the English-language historiography. ...the prominence of individual Jews in the revolutionary left, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Kurt Eisner, helped sow the seeds of the alleged "Jewish-Bolshevik" conspiracy, which had undermined the fighting power of the German army in the final hour. Grady has recast our understanding of the role Jews played in World War I, one that had potentially far-reaching implications for the further course of German history.
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