Let's use chemistry for good! If you want to offset your carbon emissions I will personally cover the first month of your subscription at ve42.co/Wren (for the first 100 people to sign up)
@@shanesgettinghandy Also the Holocaust. RU-vid, instagram and pretty much all socials medias kills anything that mentions WWII, the Nazis or the Holocaust (mostly stuff about death anyway)
True. Like with the Atomic bomb and only for it to be the reason that there's a very long lasting peace in our time. Edit (8/4): It seems like people haven't seen my replies to the people replying to my reply. Quite funny how every single one of you has the same sarcastic question but I'll just summarize what I've said below. "It's true, there's still wars going on in the Middle east, Africa and most recently, Ukraine. BUT without nuclear war, we'll just go pre-WW2. Imagine a world where major powers with millions of men can just declare war upon another without the threat of mutual annihilation. Sure, alliances will be formed and many great powers will keep each other in check but how long will that last? No ruler's dumb enough to not realize nuclear war is mankind's end. After all, what is there to rule if there's nothing?"
@@introprospector "Technical progress is not Social Progress." Exactly what I've been meaning to say. Never mistaken our technological progress for a moral one.
RU-vid when a channel talks about suicide in an informative way: Now this is an avengers level threat RU-vid when an ad is straight up softcore pornography: No problem
Oh no! Factual history presented with honesty and consideration?! Quick, bury it before the advertisers are bankrupted by this atrocity! Shame on youtube.
Talks about war crimes immediately prior implying the horrific death of men with descript detail, nothing wrong there. But the suicide of one person crosses the line?
Just look at Einstein --- one of the nicest humans who ever lived, and yet his brilliance led to nuclear weapons, which could easily destroy the human species once megalomaniacs like China Donnie and Putin use them on us
Wasn't the Nobel Peace Prize invented because of the creator wanting to make a peaceful Legacy for himself after his inventions were used for war and destruction?
Hey! Did you know God is three in one!? The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit! Bless him! Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead, and gives salvation to everyone who has faith in him! True faith in Jesus will have you bear good fruit and *drastically* change for the better! Have a blessed day, everyone!! ❤
Your worries (yes, anxiety), depression, suicidal thoughts, EVERYTHING will melt away and be NO MORE when you lean on God and put your trust in him! When I have physical pain, I literally pray and the Lord quells it, that I am healed!! Know that there is power in the name Jesus Christ! His name casts out demons and heals! People are bothered by his name. The world hates the truth and wants to continue living sinfully! God's children are set apart (holy) and righteous.
He's only considered a villain because he ended up on the losing side... Just look at how many are considered heroes for killing enemies in wars. So if he was on the winning side he'd be considered a hero too.
That's kind of an awkward thing to say given that he died while seeking a new place to stay after having to flee Nazi Germany. The reality is, of course, that the whole notion of unambiguous heroes is naive because most people are way more complex.
@@CuteLethalPuppy well, not only this, as shown in the vid, he also helped make deadly weapons, without him, the chances of these weapons NOT existing(at least back then) was so high, so, he killed millions, and still do, not because it's him doing it, but what his discovery brought to the bad intentioned people( + but he still is a quite guilty bc he helped them). p.s: not everyone accepts the "he killed our enemy so he is a hero", or think this way.
@@sebs9361 "without him, the chances of these weapons NOT existing(at least back then) was so high, " That's not how research works - not today, not back then.
The truly poetic irony in this story for me is the fact that Haber, who created the deadly yet indispensable nitrogen compounds, was awarded the Nobel Prize, created by Alfred Nobel to try and do good after inventing dynamite, which killed his own brother. Edit: People have pointed out that the invention of dynamite was after his brother died, so I stand corrected there, but I feel like my original point still stands since dynamite was also a compound that came with great progress and simultaneous evil
A lot of employees died handling nitroglycerine, Nobel made it more stable by combining an inert powder, not sure if this was DE. I think it was called keiselghur. I probably miss spelled it. It was seen that Nobel made handling explosives safer for the construction and mining industry.
Ah yes, Fritz Haber, "The Angel of Life and Death". No man better exemplifies the fact that all knowledge is a tool, one that can be used for immense good and staggering evil equally.
I learned about this guy during an ethics in science class I had to take in college. One man encapsulating our highest highs and lowest lows as a species.
How is he the lowest low? How is it that killing thousands by gas is considered a war crime whilst killing millions by a gunshot wound whilst they lay dying slowly in no mans land is considered completely acceptable? And don't start blaming him for gassing jews, that's like blaming Benjamin Franklin for his research that brought electricity so far today for executing people with the electric chair.
@@taserrr well my friend using his research to conduct those actions still makes him the lowest of the low on terms of others because it was more of a choice to do it than be forced to
@@kingmanny2843 Sure but he wanted to win the war, if the Germans had won he'd be considered a hero. And despite all this, the allies also used gas and other horrible tactics throughout world war 1.
@@taserrr I think it's a fair argument. The proponents of chemical weapons saw them as deterrents for war by making it so bad that everyone would think twice. Not only that, but it's a deterrent that was actually on the table. Which is more effective? The deterrent that never gets used, or the one that everyone fears because they know it will be used? When chemical weapons became highly regulated and banned, the creators and supporters objected because they felt their ability as a deterrent would be heavily impacted and the bans would result in more war and more death. In other words, countries wanted to be able to conduct business as usual and the threat of chemical weapons impacted that. Today, even pepper spray is actually banned by the Geneva convention which I'm sure many will find odd.
Who knew a paragraph in our chemistry textbooks mentioning Haber’s process had left out so much rich history, euphoria and sadness. Thank you veritasium for telling us such amazing stories.
@@Thanos-hp1mw Well as someone who cleared NEET exam last year, let me tell you - if you don't "love" the subject or don't "understand" anything of it, you can't clear any Indian Competitive exam. You seem like you're just blinded by your own hatred and cynicism that you're now starting to point finger at everything/everyone else to mask it. That's a really unhealthy mentality dude. 97 chapters of Physics, Zoology, Botany and Chemistry; 200 questions & 200 minutes - that isn't something that can be cleared with just simple "by heart" or "just solve MCQs" as you're stating. It takes a lot of understanding too Not to mention, everything mentioned in this video is already in our textbooks - The Nitrogen Cycle in the beginning of this video is studied thoroughly in our Grade XI Biology Chapter 12 - "Mineral Nutrition" & Grade XII Biology Chapter 14 - "Ecosystem"; the nitrogen bond making and breaking is studied in Grade XI Chemistry Chapter 4 - "Chemical Bonding" & Grade XII Chemistry Chapter 7 - "p block elements" ; the Nitrogen being one of the most important element is studied in Grade XII Chemistry Chapter 14 - "Biomolecules" and Grade XII Biology Chapter 6 - "Molecular basis of inheritance" so on and so forth
it ends with some of the most beautiful words about science I have ever heard. That's why apprecieate and truly respect what Derek does. Thank you for all those years
When i studied chemistry, we were taught this story. The professor went into explicit detail of the horrors of chemistry. He did this to explain that our knowledge is what we do with it. And hopes we use it for good.
@@dsweet5273 more like the professor did. It's mostly a valueless expression, people always think they're doing good so it's useless to warn your students to not use their knowledge for evil. Unless one of them aims to be a comic book mad scientist villain, they'd probably argue whatever they're doing is a good thing. It would be more useful to tell them to really think about the consequences (be it direct or indirect) and ethic of their work.
They say knowledge is a curse. I learned so many things from this, and it left me in indescribable mixtures of joy and sadness. Thanks, Veritasium, unironically, for shaking up my perception on life in this world, once again. I write this, by the way, as your final segment of your video, touches on this exact theme. ...You're a cool guy; I like you. At least, it's nice to know I'm not alone.
This story resonates so hard with the story of Oppenheimer these days. Whatever can be used for good can be used for evil. Oppenheimer started with developing a weapon, while Haber started with the fertilizer.
I've done part of my PhD in the Fritz-Haber-Institut. It's weird to imagine that the experimental hall where I've spent so many nights doing a bit of science was once crowded with people focused on how to kill more efficiently....
Yes but such a shame he had to spoil it all at the end by plugging the junk science "anthropogenic climate change" agenda which (along with the scamdemic) is one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated on a naïve humanity. The same genocidal maniacs (the globalists) are now trying the same thing with nitrogen fertilizers to further reduce an already low food supply.
Fritz had a half-sister named Frieda! I’m sure there’s some indirect representation or influence of him in Attack on Titan. As attack on Titan is a piece of literature that has heavy parallels to both World Wars; I think it ties in with how the Fritz's power of the titans is said to have both brought destruction and despair and bridges, roads, crops and wealth to humanity.
This is why I love history. I CONSTANTLY state that my beliefs about history and that I believe that censoring and/or even refusing to teach students about history like the Holocaust. As somebody whose fascination of history revolves 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗬 on war era history (most especially WWI & WWII), I completely understand that history is nowhere CLOSE to being pretty and can even make some of the emotionally strongest people cry at the depravity humanity is capable of, but when we censor and even refuse to acknowledge those awful events in history, we’ll only end up repeating it later on in the future.
As soon as I read the title of this video my mind immediately went to Sabaton's latest single called "Father", which tells the story of Fritz Haber...an amazing track about a very interesting yet conflicting historical figure.
14:50 Ironically, Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission, which eventually made it possible to develop nuclear weapons. In fact, he was also involved in the German nuclear weapons program. It seems he took Fritz's words about "innumerable lives" to heart.
Also an extremly interresting person. Openly pacifist and open critic of ther Nazis. Lobbied for release and safety of German Jewish scientists. Yet worked on the Uranprojekt (though not on the weaponization, but the development of the reactor iirc). He also felt directly responsible for the deaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I would argue he was not on the same line as Haber, since he was mostly lobbying against the use of fusion as a weapon.
This reminds me when USA bombed two cities with nuclear bombs - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and tried to frame it as "saving lives by ending the war sooner". This kind of reasoning can never end well.
@@deiaraki It did "save lives by ending the war sooner", obviously for Americans, and likely many Japanese as well (and I say this as Japanese). And can you blame Americans for trying to minimise the deaths of their own soldiers and citizens? Japanese would've done the same, for sure, if they had the technology. And if you're talking about unnecessary deaths in WWII, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what Japanese did in China, Southeast Asia, and what Germans did with Jews, Polish, and Russians, etc.
It always amazes me how Veritasium can tell you about fascinating topics that you didn't even know existed. After every video I feel like I can understand the world at least a tiny bit more.
@@alchemist_777 yup haber's process - N2 + 3H2 -----> 2NH3 with finely divided iron as catalyst, Molybdenum as a promoter and the rxn proceeding at 200atm with a temperature of 500 C.
Most schools mention the Haber Bosch Process they just do not go into this much detail. Which is funny because everybody knows about Einstein and he has the least impact on day to day living vs. Haber.
I just started watching the episode and love the introduction; it feels terrific. This is peak Veritasium. All your content is beautiful. Thank you for keep this growing. 😊
Another worthwhile little note, it's quite possible that it was his research that killed him. In the process of making nitrates from ammonium, nitrogen dioxide is formed. One long term effect from exposure to nitrogen dioxide is cardiac arrest. It can happen years or decades after exposure, and I imagine he was exposed to quite a bit developing his process.
this is one of the reasons chemistry is so interesting but troublesome. when trying to discover new things how can you be sure it won't end up harming you greatly from exposure. respects to all the experimenting chemists out there.
Oh, it's not just "possible", it's in fact most likely that's exactly why he died of, Cardiac arrest, so many years later, especially because of the, "time delay", nature of the type of, muscle damage that it causes. Chiefly, due to destruction of, Mitochondria, and the, Ribosomes, within the, Nucleus, of the, Heart's, Cells.
@@benni7379 Because he died despondent, regretful, and in existential despair of the futility of it all? ("He passed away shortly thereafter at the age of 65, but not before repenting for devoting his mind and his talents to wage war with poison gasses") -Smithsonian magazine
@@curcumin417 Well not quite, but rather because first of all he made the world we live in possible, second, as the phrase says a scientist belongs to the world, till the point where his Country is in danger, that’s when he does everything he needs to do to save it and the people living there. I mean yes hundreds of thousands of people died because of his chlorine invention, and millions more because of Zyklon b (where he wasn’t really a part of anymore) but billions more grew out of it
Honestly let's give a big props to the editing and animation on these recent videos. Feels like I'm watching a TedEd video, with Derek's narration. It's only getting better!!!
@Lakehuntist looking at your videos I doubt that very much. I cannot make a video of my life depended on it, but i don't go around claiming I can. And I don't make sad videos about trolling people.
Watching Veritasium’s videos throughout a month or so. I completely fell in love with them. Every video tells people about another interesting and important thing in a field of science, which is great. But every time a video isn’t just about a scientific topic itself, it also conveys its own gist related to crucial events happening in the world. Every time after you watch another video of Veritasium’s you really need to seat back and think hard about what is happening around you and whether it’s acceptable in terms of adequacy and safety or not. This is what makes Derek’s videos that awesome ❤
In the high school year many of us were taught this Haber- Bosch process. But to know the historical tale of it is very satisfying and chilling at the same time. Thanks veritasium for enlightening us.💕
This might be the best youtube videos ever exist. For me who knows absolutely nothing about it, this video is mind blowing. And the way they deliver the information is very easy to understand. Good job Veritasium 👍
Wow! This should be shown in every school. The combination of so many subjects explained in a relatable and understandable way is extremely eyeopening. Imagine a day where you watch this video and discuss it in different classes: chemistry, history, biology, ethics, physics. You could even relate it to art with painters like Otto Dix. I think that's what's missing a lot at ordinary schools: A tangible well connected story, making one understand why this knowledge is important and useful. Great work, Veritasium-Team!
@Lakehuntist The fact that you even have the insolence to think about writing this is incredibly rude and ridiculous. This is a highly educational, extremely well edited, scripted and narrated video with top quality. Something that is a represensative of the fact that there is still extremely valuable content on this website. And you, someone who is actively participating in turning this great website into effectively a trashbin, is devaluing this? What the hell are you doing with your life? Do you have any respect for people who actually put thought and effort into their projects? Who try to educate the world population about interesting topics with high standards for free? Have you ever considered that what you do is a horrible idea? Gtfo of RU-vid and rethink your entire life. And learn to respect those, who actually make a positive impact on our species and the entire world we live in.
Equally important was Carl Bosch, who took Haber's tabletop setup and scaled it up to factory size, which, among other things, required finding a catalyst other than osmium. He also won a Nobel prize for this, and the process is most referred to by both their names: the Haber-Bosch process. Bosch went on to be one of the founders, and first head of, the chemical mega-conglomerate IG Farben. IG Farben would become notorious for its practices during World War 2. It was the company that made Zyklon B. Half of its workforce was slave labour and it had a factory that was effectively a concentration/death camp: Auschwitz III AKA Auschwitz Monowitz. IG Farben was also involved in the medical experimentation conducted at a number of concentration camps.
Is that same Bosch whose firm makes engines for russian tanks? Because we found that russian tanks invade Ukraine on German engines, shooting our homes through French optics. Since 2014, arming Ukraine was forbidden, so Italy, Germany and France sold weapons to russia... and now keep giving it a billion Euros every day for fossil fuels, financing a genocide. These missiles that hit our port with grain today? Paid by EU.
Just want to say THANK YOU for all thee great info you have in your videos absolutely love how you explain everything in detail!! Crazy Ive had several questions in a few videos and you actually answered them in the video it was great!! So please keep up the great work it is greatly appreciated and very fascinating have a great one thanks again for doing what you do!!!
As someone who has inhaled chlorine gas, I have mixed feelings here. It's incredibly painful. Even the relatively small amount I breathed in, sent me to the emergency room. DYING that way sounds like my worst nightmare. He really was human though. He did both tremendous good and caused tremendous pain. Honestly, if he were on the winning side of the war, I have little doubt that he would have been remembered by history as a great hero. But his country lost.
Don't forget, they lost because the US allied with the most prolific mass murder of the war, in order to defeat the second-most prolific. Of course, our high-school history books don't put it quite so on-the-nose. Now that I think about it, it's also rather odd that China still has giant portraits of Mao everywhere, the guy who REALLY took murder and bureaucratic catastrophe to levels previously unknown.
This. Manhattan Project worked on weapons just as cruel and much more devastating and effective. But in their case it managed to end the war, so now it's an achievement. If the Japanese won, it would be remembered as the most egregious war crime in history.
Between the concentrated chlorine tabs and the Hydrochloric acid, death is always available at your local pool supply store. Thankfully nobody makes that connection.
@@stevendamon7309 that's actually what happened to me! I was in elementary school and my dad was adding chlorine tablets to the container. Rain must have gotten in because we both breathed in some. I got hit worse than him. I was lower than him. I couldn't breathe and was a crying mess. My lungs felt like they were burning and I was coughing/trying to throw something up. Nothing came out. I don't remember what happened at the emergency room, but I remember the pure agony and terror that I felt...
@@rosered5485 I worked with the stuff for a couple of years in the pool service business and had the same experience, just not as bad. My throat closed immediately and I was instantly choking and in pain, and this was without mixing it with hydrochloric acid (I believe it's called "mustard gas") that we also carried in the back of the truck. It made me drive a bit more carefully, eh? I am amazed at how loosely regulated this stuff is as a dual use product. As an agent of death, chemistry puts firearms to shame.
20:00 "Science and technology have improved our lives immeasurably, but they have also given us ever increasing ways to destroy ourselves." Such a touching line right there.
Hey! Did you know God is three in one!? The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit! Bless him! Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead, and gives salvation to everyone who has faith in him! True faith in Jesus will have you bear good fruit and *drastically* change for the better! Have a blessed day, everyone!! ❤
Your worries (yes, anxiety), depression, suicidal thoughts, EVERYTHING will melt away and be NO MORE when you lean on God and put your trust in him! When I have physical pain, I literally pray and the Lord quells it, that I am healed!! Know that there is power in the name Jesus Christ! His name casts out demons and heals! People are bothered by his name. The world hates the truth and wants to continue living sinfully! God's children are set apart (holy) and righteous.
@@rokusvandendool4563 Humans destroying each other has always and will always happen. Our own self destruction is relatively new so in my opinion more tragic.
I am a huge fan of the channel but we can't just "regard him as irrelevant...because someone else would have figured out a way to process Nitrogen out of the air". Someone else would have figured out the Earth goes around the sun (Copernicus). Someone else could have found Laws of Motion (Newton) and someone else would have figured out how electricity and magnetism works (Maxwell) and so on and so on. These people give their whole lives up for science and it would be disrespectful of us to simply regard them as irrelevant.
Why can't we? Maybe that's not irrelevant and they should be mentioned but most of those discoveries would be discovered anyway. There are many examples when few scientists came up with the same idea in a short amount of time. And we give credits only to one who was a little bit faster, and zero credits for the rest.
I didn't realize at first that Fritz Haber is the same Haber who created the 'Haber's process', the same reaction that i had learnt just last year in class, and which i was coincidentally literally just studying, for my exam next week. I never knew there was such an interesting and deep backstory to the Haber's process and Fritz Haber himself and his enormous impact on the world, especially to someone who is interested in history and science like me. It makes me look at all those reactions i had to memorize all these years in a whole new light, that all those reactions i have been having to memorize for the past 2 years probably had fascinating backstories to them as well, and probably changed the world in many ways. How many of those names had similarly fascinating and tragic stories to them. I wish they taught us in class with half the enthusiasm derek does. A shame that in the education system in my country, Chemistry has been reduced down to a mindless list of formulas and reactions in our chemistry textbook and curriculum. Something to be feared and dreaded in the exam. Something that is a struggle and burden more than anything. Reduced to nothing more than An abstract metric, a number on a sheet of paper, a scorecard, or a percentile benchmark. Shame i never got to learn the true meaning and depth of the subjects i was learning. i do wish they taught with the same depth and understanding that derek imparts to us.
That's definitely india my friend . 90% schools have science lab only on papers . In 10th and 12 th grade i just copied some experiments from a book in my practice copy and that's it . I have never seen any lab flask or chemical in real life
@@arvindbhardwaj7747 then ig u live in some big city like Mumbai , Delhi , Kolkata or some big school in any city. In recent report it is found that india spent the least among big countries in R & D only 0.7 % of its GDP why is very big threat for India's future. If you want to know more search world affair prasant Dhawan on yt and in his recents videos see that one even today he posted one news that the GDP on scientific equipments are increased to 18% which is very bad move by our gov. Even many scientists are against it . But what will happen here people will do hindu muslim mandir masjid no focus on real issues 😐
That’s the way teaching science works everywhere.. chemistry and history are separate topics. Imagine having to know these formulas AND the year they were discovered 😅
You know the whole colony of roseate spoonbills story was a cover up. Real reason someone was interested in the guano island is, let me quote Wikipedia on that, "working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage US test missiles launched from Cape Canaveral". That's it. It's not about bird dung, or endangered birds, or even the dragon living on the island... In case you missed the joke, it's the plot of Dr. No, the Ian Fleming novel that served as bases for the first Bond film.
I recently learned about his existence in chemistry lessons, it's incredible how one can kill so many, save so many, make everyone angry about him and then get a nobel prize for it.
Truly a man of contradictions, then again who isn’t? Einstein who was peaceful helped bring about the nuclear bomb… What’s that line from that movie? Something along the lines of “Humanity tends to meet its fate on the road we take to avoid it” or something like that. Good people often do bad things, bad people often create situations that lead to more unity (look at Putin and NATO rn), I guess the best we can do is to simply observe and attempt to understand and learn from the actions of others before us…
Aren't the creators of the Manhattan project and the atomic bomb the same? They created a weapon to kill the enemy faster and in greater quantity in "name of the country". Doesn't that make them the same OR MORE killers than Haber?
@@pabloata4708 I mean you could make that argument, although the Manhattan project was a group rather than an individual and Harber also killed a lot more people through his conventional weapons than Nukes ever did, but you could definitely make that argument…
Usage of technology is highly dependent on their users, not just their creator. The one who invents them are just the easiest scapegoats to put the blame to.
@@griffins750 Einstein didn't participate in the Manhattan Project, he just signed a letter to President Roosevelt (written by another scientist) warning that the Nazis were working on atomic weapons. Einstein was an outspoken pacifist and would have refused to work on the Manhattan Project. The people in charge of the project knew that too and they didn't even consider him to be involved in it anyway.
Being a Biology/History double major, I got to learn about Fritz Haber on both fronts: Fritz Haber the creator of the Haber-Bosch process (chemistry and biology), and Fritz Haber the creator of chemical weaponry (WWI and WWII history). In biology he's a hero, in history he's a monster. I got a very interesting perspective having him spoken of in two completely different ways depending on the subject he was being taught in.
than you also must know that zyklon was used on the American border from 1920s to 50s to disinfect migrants. And that later germans decided to use it to disinfect clothes in their camps
I appreciate the seriousness of this video. Not making light of these issues, especially the enormous loss of life. Very respectable way to cover grim topics.
Don't forget, it is not the "Haber process" - it is the "Haber-Bosch process". Carl Bosch was as instrumental as Fritz Haber because Bosch was the guy coming up with the engineering, machinery and installations to make the process work on an industrial scale. Bosch is another remarkable figure of chemistry; Bosch was CEO of BASF introducing many other high pressure processes, such as urea synthesis or isobutyl oil synthesis. He was awarded the Nobel prize just like Fritz Haber, but later. and for having worked on so many different high pressure processes, not just the Haber-Bosch method. Bosch founded the infamous I.G. Farben. Also, Haber's wife Clara Immerwahr was not only a PhD in chemistry, but suffered from not being able to do much scientific work because of the dominating personality of her husband as well as the social restrictions and pressures of being a mother and a housewife. She was also a pacificist. Even though the main reason for killing herself are today attributed to 1.) a depression from her dissatisfaction with her life in general and 2.) having caught her husband with another woman, she was extremely irritated and against her husband being involved with the military, ending up as "the father of the gas war", and supporting the military-industrial complex in other functions.
I like it very much when content creators place their sponsors at the end as it only tell how good the video is going to be. Keep up the good work sir!
@@angieroxy7550 that organization gets kickbacks from the WHO and some US carbon reduction initiatives not to mention the measurement of a person’s “carbon footprint” is a world and measurement formed by BP basically your paying a company to do nothing
Fascinating. Together with the previous one (about the guy who killed the most people in history) it is a great series about how things are not so clear in science and its everyday application. Thanks for shedding light on these!
things are very clear in science and the more we progress the clearer it becomes. Back then people were licking radium with their tongue to paint dots on wristwatches and thought that was a healthy thing to do. I'm sure in a few decades the things we assume to be safe today will be regarded as incredibly stupid and narrow sighted.
Ah yes, "The Alchemy of Air" probably my favorite book for the past few years. Tragic story, Fritz son Herman also committed suicide after the war and the passing of Hermann's wife, then 3 years later Hermann's oldest daughter also committed suicide.
@@remusvulpin6025 i dont think so personally it was just a awefull time to be around. The stress of just not knowing whats going to happen and the sadness of losing family can drive everyone over the verge i think.
And the daughter committed suicide because after she'd emigrated to America, she'd been researching an antidote to chlorine poisoning but was told her work was being discontinued because the U.S. wanted to focus on the Manhattan Project. So Haber's granddaughter spent her life's work trying to undo what Haber did, and died because science was moving onto an even more horrific new weapon.
So far, I really, really love those Veritasium science videos and how well made they are !!! Thanks very much to all the Veritasium team for all the good work 👍
I really like your magnetic plastic molecule models. That helps a lot. Keep doing that. Even for mostly physics issues, the simple chemistry illustrations are super useful.
This was one of the best Veritasium episodes I have ever seen. The science, story, and message kept me locked in the whole way through and I didn’t want it to end.
The biology of the soil is the key for Nitrogen in getting to the plants, regenerative agriculture/horticulture,…... not adding nitrogen by concentrated sources, but, adding concentrated nitrogen sources is a fix.
As a chemist who is working on electrochemical water splitting, I Just got goosebumps throughout the video. Maybe because in my childhood Haber's process was my favourite, simple yet extraordinary. Thank you for making this video. It felt delightful.
Why not try out all the random combinations of gasses/pressures/catalysts you can think of without a specific goal? has anyone done this? In chemistry.
@@arkatub scientists all over the world are trying with their specific combination. If you count the thousands of scientists and their thousands of possibile combination of catalysts , it is indeed a "random" search for that "Eureka" moment😉
As a synthetic chemist, I've used chlorine a few times in the lab. I've briefly inhaled low concentrations of Cl2 when it off-gassed from reaction mixtures and it's really unpleasant, I can't imagine how bad a death by chlorine gas in the trenches was.
As a synthetic organic chemist, I have generated Cl2 gas in the lab a lot. Many times. I'd rather by by chemical than the evil hand of another human being.
I was using chlorine to clean the bathroom. I was too slow and stayed a min longer than I should and my eyes, throat, and lungs stung. Those who breathed chlorine in trenches got their lungs and eyes chemically burned.
Great video, hadn't realised the whole tragedy behind Fritz Haber. However I was surprised and disappointed to see no mention of Carl Bosch. Everyone forgets the Chemical Engineer! Without Bosch the process would have stayed benchtop scale, as he was key to developing the requirements for upscaling to industrial quantities, including better catalysts than osmium (iron based) that help make it more profitable and practical for scale up, and the general process equipment for coping with the high temperatures and pressures.
That was gonna be my comment too. Bosch is always forgotten about. He worked on the optimal conditions for the process to allow it to be scaled and helped create the first factory. Plus, he was just an excellent scientist too.
@@ingoseiler I've not heard the latter name before, I shall look it up! In England was always taught it as the Haber-Bosch, hence my surprise it wasn't mentioned.
Funny how being identified as a patriot or a villain only depends on which side you were on. Fritz Haber a villain but Richard Feynman ,Robert Oppenheimer defined as patriots just as all the unnamed scientists nowadays working for big military tech companies. I would love to watch Veritasium telling the story of the man/woman or team who developed Agent Orange.I suppose it also depends on if your weapons were used to defend and promote democracy or not.
Promote democracy in WW1? France and the UK held massive colonial empires, Russia was an empire itself, and Italy had a king as well. The USA had conquered a massive amount of land from the native locals and was also trying to increase its already large international influence - all in all, in WW1, almost no one was fighting for democracy. Some small players were but they were mostly just dragged into the conflict - not that they didn’t participate enthusiastic later on as well.
Well, it is certainly a difference whether you fight for or against Hitler / Kaiser Wilhelm. With Agent Orange we do indeed enter in very murky water. Good point.
Feynman went into a period of depression after developing the bomb. He believed that a nuclear war would be very very imminent. Also didn't help that his wife died while he was working on the bomb, and he kind of just emotionally ignored her death at the time, so emotionally suppressed it until after the war.
When you said he tried to get gold out of seawater my knee jerk reaction was superstition/ stupidity to think that was possible. Before his other inventions they were probably considered equally impossible by the people of his day. Thank you. This was truly informative.
There is approximately 1 gram of gold for every 100 million tons of seawater. The problem is, it is incredibly inefficient to extract it. It CAN be done, but isn't worth the cost.
Seawater actually contain gold .. and uranium. Yes, it does. In fact, scientist had calculated the amount of gold (and uranium) in sea water are thousands time more than what we have in entire mines this planet have, combined. But. But it's so diluted in water that the cost to harvest it from seawater are far higher than dig it from mines.
Ancient sumerians carved on stone that the creators of mankind came to earth to do just that, extract gold from the ocean and atmosphere but it wasn't producing a substantial amount so they began to mine, but workers were complaining about labor, so they took the life form they thought would produce the best results, and mixed in their DNA with the animal's, resulting in what we are today. I have only been mind blown by the past. These discoveries seem lackluster in comparison.
"The Alchemy of Air" is an excellent book about Fritz Haber and the Malthusian trap and such, it's part of what inspired me to go into chemistry. Recommend you read it if you're interested in this
Yep! Just finished it a couple of months ago. As soon as I realized what this video was about I was sure Derek had based it on the book. An Audible sponsorship would have been perfect for this episode.
It’s probably demonitized and age restricted because of the part from 16:00 onwards about Clara Haber‘s suicide. I get the age restriction but I don’t think RU-vid has to demonitize every video that doesn’t censor the word “suicide“.
Great video! However, we cannot speak of Haber's contributions to nitrogen chemistry without mentioning Carl Bosch! The process is actually called the Haber-Bosch process to recognize Bosch's contributions. Carl Bosch led the team of engineers and chemists at BASF that made the trickle flow of Haber's table top prototype ammonia oven become the factory sized ammonia river that has fed the world's fertilizer and weapons needs ever since. This was no easy feat- without the successful scaling up of the process, it would never have been possible to commercialize and thus economically unviable to operate. You can make a small pressure oven relatively easily, but to make one the size of a house? Its like making a 1920's airplane versus a modern fighter jet... Or maybe a sailboat versus an aircraft carrier. Same working principle, huge difference. It took tremendous amounts of pioneering engineering- the science of how to make chemical reactions possible on a large scale under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure- which laid the foundations of the field we today call chemical engineering. Bosch eventually became the director of BASF and then (when BASF merged with other firms) the conglomerate IG Farben, after which he was retired from his position, due to poor health and resistance to Hitler's policies. He shared the Nobel prize in chemistry (with Friedrich Bergius) in 1931 for his contributions to high pressure chemistry.
There was another guy that i forgot the name,but a british one that came up with the design for one the most important parts but he is rarely talked about too.
It's necessary to consider Bosch as an important figure; his legacy is one of the largest engineering products companies in the world. But truthfully, I think handing him the Nobel in conjunction with Haber was simply the committee trying to save face. Carl Bosch was an excellent engineer, but he didn't do chemical discovery. The process on an industrial scale was, indeed, the scaled version of what Haber had discovered; never since nor before has a chemistry Nobel been given to the industrial engineer who scaled up the production. Bosch was necessary to the commercial production, and in many instances he was an experimental chemist, but the politics of the time suggest that he wasn't even named in the process technique until after the Nobel was awarded.
Learning things about base elements and chemicals bore the everloving hell out of me, but this was interesting. As soon as you said Zyklon-B, my heart sank.
What. A. Story. I'm so intrigued by these recent scientist life stories, accompanied by your big, philosophical questions, your videos are of such high quality, please make more of this!
I couldnt agree more. This actually feels like a story that should have a movie made about it because of how crazy it is. Props to Derek and all of the other incredibly talented people who worked on this video
@@hyp3ri6n58 , It is a compellingly, tragic story that would make a good movie. Perhaps Christof Waltz could play Fritz Haber. A tale of woe and a warning to humanity. Weaponized AI, anyone? Anyone?
It's crazy how desperately we want to categorize people as either heroes/idols or villains/monsters. Especially when it does nothing useful, and especially when they have been dead for a long time, instead of focus on what they accomplished separately. Edit: accomplishments as in both positive and negative.
Of course… The child-like minds of these Iosers is far to naive to look at anything in a nuanced manner.. which unfortunately requires among many things!-intelligence, comprehension of many different facets that were ongoing during his life, and an ability to NOT view the past and its people while using the virtue signaling, judgmental lenses of 2022, as so many people unfortunately do.
Everytime I watch something heavy about chemistry or physics, I can't wrap my head around how everything in this universe works. Just amazing. A dissection of a molecule brings life, and when it comes back together, can be so explosive that it can harm life.
@@Lauraz1 God also apparently ensured only a vanishingly small percentage of humans would be interested in it, and the vast majority interested in guns, cars, sports, tits, TV, games and sex. shrug.gif
Just a small note : the pesticide that was invented at the Haber institute was Zyklon A, with the smelling compound Nazis then increased its severity (pushing it from A to B on the pesticide severity scale) and removed that smelling compound to create what was used in the gas chambers. Great video and amazing work nonetheless !
Zyklon A, B and C were all invented by Degescha (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung) the german society for pest control, founded by Haber. Zyklon A is a liquid that consists of Methyl Cyanoformat (Zyklon) and Methy Chloroformat, which serves as a warning agent, as it has a pungent odour and irritates eyes and mucous membranes. Zyklon B, based on Hydrogen Cyanide, still contains Methyl Chloroformat for the same reason. The liquid is bound in pellets made from kieselguhr or porous plaster. Zyklon C also contains Chloropicrin a strong disinfectant/fungicide/insecticide that is also extremely toxic.(Chlorpicrin was also used as a poisonous gas in WW1) Zyklon A was invented in 1920, Zyklon B in 1922 and unfortunately I can not find enough information on Zyklon C. Zyklon A is impractical, it needs to be sprayed out of a pressurised container and gases out much slower, this makes it also more dangerous. Zyklon B is the safest variant, it can be brought out by hand and still gases out quickly. It was also used throughout the last century and is still allowed in several countries as an insecticide. Though as far as I can see actual use has stopped in favour of more economic Chemicals. Zyklon C thoroughly disinfects almost anything, but it is corrosive to metals and is therefore only usable in few scenarios. The letters A B C are misleading, they were never sold under that name, just "Zyklon".
And in the later stages of the war when funding and supplies were running low, they literally just pumped exhaust from running vehicles into the gas chambers...which just goes to show if there is a will there is a way, even without advanced weaponry bad people will still find a way to do bad things.
And the Nazis got the idea to use said gas from the US who used it in the 20s to decontaminate Mexican immigrants’ clothes while they themselves were forced into pesticide showers (whether anybody actually had lice wasn’t even a factor, what mattered was they were Mexican)
