- Person
- Fritz Haber
- Lived
- 1868–1934
- Field
- Chemistry
- From
- German
The story
In 1911 Fritz Haber, already famous for his work on ammonia, left Karlsruhe to become the first director of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. It belonged to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, founded so that academic scientists, government and industry could together support original research. During the First World War the institute's work was turned to military purposes.
From 1920 to 1926 Haber pursued a plan to extract gold from sea water to help Germany pay its war reparations, but he found that the gold content was far too low to make it worthwhile. Greatly depressed by the failure, he devoted himself to reorganising his institute.
He appointed sectional directors and gave them complete freedom in their work. Among them were James Franck, Herbert Freundlich, Michael Polanyi and Rudolf Ladenburg, and the institute produced much important work on colloid chemistry and atomic physics. Scientists such as Eugene Wigner, later a Nobel laureate, also worked there. Haber also managed a large gift from the Japanese businessman Hoshi Hajime, which supported the work of Max Planck, Otto Hahn, Leo Szilard and others.
Haber made great efforts to re-establish Germany's scientific relationships with other countries after the isolation of the war years, and served on the League of Nations committee on chemical warfare. The colloquia he held every fortnight did much to establish the institute's international reputation. His Nobel biography describes his skill at clarifying a scientific discussion in a few sentences, and says that he was always approachable and courteous and interested in every kind of problem. It calls him a model director, who allowed complete freedom while keeping remarkable control of the institute as a whole.
That era ended in 1933, when Nazi race laws forced out most of his staff and Haber resigned. After his death the institute was renamed in his honour at Max von Laue's instigation, and since 1953 it has been the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society. Seven Nobel laureates have been associated with it, from von Laue and Franck to Gerhard Ertl in 2007, and it remains a centre for research in physical chemistry and surface science.
Why it matters
Haber's model of a research institute built on freedom and open exchange helped make Dahlem one of the great centres of twentieth-century physical chemistry, a role it still plays.
About Fritz Haber
Nobel chemist whose ammonia synthesis made the fertilisers that feed billions, who also led Germany’s WWI poison-gas programme, and who was driven out by the Nazis.
More about Fritz Haber
- Fritz Haber's surface idea inspired LangmuirFritz Haber observed that the adsorbing power of a solid can come from unsaturated valence forces on its surface, an idea on which Irving Langmuir founded his theory of adsorption.
- Haber–Bosch fertiliser helps feed half the worldScaled up by Carl Bosch from 1913, Fritz Haber's ammonia process made cheap fertiliser possible. Food grown with it is estimated to support nearly half the world's population.
- Fritz Haber co-invented the glass electrodeWith his colleague Cremer, Fritz Haber invented the glass electrode for measuring the acidity of liquids, a device his Nobel biography describes as now widely used.
- Fritz Haber linked electrochemistry to industryFritz Haber's 1898 textbook on technical electrochemistry and his discovery that controlling electrode potential yields specific products became classics of the field.
- Fritz Haber invented a whistle to protect minersIn 1913 Fritz Haber unveiled a firedamp whistle that used sound to warn miners of explosive methane, and he also devised a quartz-thread gauge for very low gas pressures.
- Fritz Haber made ammonia from the air in 1909In 1909 Fritz Haber and Robert Le Rossignol became the first to synthesise ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, solving a problem chemists had pursued for decades.
- Fritz Haber wrote a model book on gas reactionsFritz Haber's 1905 book Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions was later regarded as a model of accuracy and critical insight in chemical thermodynamics.
- Fritz Haber resigned rather than dismiss his Jewish staffOrdered by the Nazis in 1933 to dismiss Jewish employees, Fritz Haber tried to delay their departures until he could find them places, then resigned himself.
Sources
- Fritz Haber: Biographical NobelPrize.org
- Fritz Haber Wikipedia
- Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.