It's 100 years since Fritz Haber found a way to synthesise ammonia

I did not realize that today was the 100 year mark for the Haber process until seeing this link on HN. But since I saw it, I wanted to translate its importance as an algorithm in industrial chemistry into terms your average software geek would understand. The Haber process is the B-tree of the chemistry world; we build an extraordinary amount of application chemistry on top of it. While I made my name in theoretical computer science, I actually went to school for chemistry and chemical engineering.

The difference between chemical process design and algorithm design is the difference between bits and atoms, the operands. In the abstract, they are identical. As a chemical engineer, you learn the core algorithms, as those are the building blocks of much of what you might want to do. In computer science you might learn the B-tree algorithm, in chemical engineer you learn the Haber process -- they have similar importance. Like with the B-tree, the original algorithm has been improved in various ways; the Haber process has been improved similarly. But the influence of both are readily apparent in their respective disciplines. The Haber process was one of the most important chemical algorithms ever invented and the world is a much richer place as a result. Most people have no idea how important ammonia synthesis is to just about everything but much of what we view as modern civilization has its roots in Fritz Haber's invention.

Well here's something I didn't know about this story: apparently Haber was a German nationalist of Jewish descent who was also responsible for the world's first major chemical attack, which killed about 6000 allied troops.

"A week after [that] attack, [his wife] took Haber's service revolver and shot herself, dying in the arms of Hermann, their only son."

Edit: oh god, this is the Zyklon B man.

For those who like to listen to podcasts, Radiolab did a great show on the fascinating story of Fritz Haber:

http://www.radiolab.org/story/180132-how-do-you-solve-proble...

> After the rise of Hitler, Haber – who had become a rich industrialist – was expelled from Germany because he came from a Jewish family

There is some disagreement over whether he was forced out or left on his own.

Some sources say the Nazis were willing to overlook his Jewish background and let him stay and work on weapons (Haber had converted to Christianity long before the Nazis came to power).

For instance, the bio at the Nobel Prize site says that he resigned because the Nazi race laws required most of his staff to resign, and he would not go along with that. [1]

[1] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1...

Science always has two sides, one good and one terrible. Likewise you can write software for good and for bad. Some people would rather eliminate both to avoid the bad, but that's bad as well. Avoid killing 100m to save 5b is not easy unless you are among the 5b.

The author manages to make saving a billion human lives into a morally ambiguous deed: had the people starved, they wouldn't be polluting the planet!