Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, March 29, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
Thomas Hager
"The Alchemy of Air: How an Engineering Triumph Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler"
ABSTRACT -- Thomas Hager traces the strange story of the Haber-Bosch process, one of the most important and potentially dangerous technological breakthroughs of the past century. In order to solve what was seen as a looming problem of world hunger during the opening years of the twentieth century, German scientists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a high-pressure chemical technology that today consumes 1 percent of all the energy on earth and is responsible for keeping more than two billion people alive. Half of the nitrogen in your body came from a Haber-Bosch plant. The process was successful enough to propel Germany through two world wars. It now threatens the biosphere.
SPEAKER -- Oregon-based science writer Thomas Hager has authored six books on the history of science and technology, including Force of Nature, a biography of chemist Linus Pauling (the only person to ever win two unshared Nobel Prizes); and The Demon Under the Microscope, the story of the world's first antibiotic. His most recent work, The Alchemy of Air, was a finalist for the National Academies Communications Award, a Borders Books "New Voices" selection, and was named a "Book of the Year".
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Barbara Scott,
Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov