Clara Immerwahr: Science’s Tragic and Surprisingly Modern Heroine | Hacker News Reader

Clara Immerwahr: Science’s Tragic and Surprisingly Modern Heroine

nursingclio.org

57 pointslermontov11 comments

>Haber worked on many of the gases used in the front lines in World War I, from mustard gas to zyklon. Immerwahr, a lifelong pacifist, was horrified and disgusted by her husband’s research, which would lead to the loss of countless lives.

Haber also invented the Haber process and on the whole probably saved an order of magnitude more lives than were lost to his inventions.

He's a fascinating tragic figure. Many of his own relatives were later killed by the Zyklon B pesticide derived from his work.

With that said, I think it's appropriate to focus on Clara's life in this discussion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

The programme was called "Brot aus Luft" (Bread from air). The process still uses 1-2% if the worlds energy today.

How many of those humans would have ever even existed without the Haber process? The moral equation is a bit more involved than just lives saved vs lives lost, especially considering the subsequent population explosion.

> Haber also invented the Haber process and on the whole probably saved an order of magnitude more lives than were lost to his inventions.

This is not a very good defense. He could very well have chosen not to develop those weapons. He made a conscious decision to kill lots of people, and we can and should absolutely judge him for this, independent of anything else he's done. We don't give surgeons a quota of one free murder for every ten lives saved either.

(Edit: As always, I'd be interested in constructive criticism from the downvoters.)

"Immerwahr" means "Always true" what a nice name.

Same thought. It sounds almost too good, like it's out of a fantasy book.

I wonder how her family got that name? Many family names seem to originate in professions. What did you need to do to get Immerwahr?

Judge maybe?

Actual Immerwahr here. It's a Jewish name. We all come from the same family. My understanding is that during the Napoleonic era when the German-speaking Jews had to take stable last names (rather than the patronymics), one of our enlightenment-inspired ancestors chose Immerwahr, "Always True." The closest English equivalent is Truman.

A surprisingly common tragic story. The Curies were almost unique for their time in that Pierre actually allowed Marie proper credit for her work.

Her grandson Daniel Immerwahr mentions her in his superb book on the empire building of the USA. She and her husband are mentioned in the chapter on the Guano Islands Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_Islands_Act.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121985-how-to-hide-an-...

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