Summary
Chemistry has been used throughout the centuries. It has been used in war since the times of the Spartans and Athenians. It was not a great thing, nor improvement until the First World War. Then chemists and scientists started to invent chemicals, at first mostly gases that will inflict harm upon the enemy. The United States had made the Hague pact with other countries prohibiting the use of harmful chemicals, but this pact was later broken and ignored. More chemical weapons started to be made including lacrimators made out of Bromine used by the French, though this was not even useful during war against the Germans.
Fritz Haber, a German chemist, was able to convert the abundant Nitrogen on the air, to scarce Nitrogen in the ground needed by the plants called Ammonia. Composting was then replaced by fertilizers. His method help feed many people during WWI. From something that helped people, Haber began doing Hydrogen based bombs that killed people. The Hague pact came to place again and some countries like France did not want to break it. Germany only promised not to use certain weapons, so they made the Bromine lacrimator better, and to release gas with impact. It was not successful with the Russians, since it is so cold it froze. But Haber came to make something worse than Bromine: Chloride. It is lethal on both the skin and the lungs, in which people end up choking. Haber caused the death of many people, only to collect data for what later became the Haber’s Rule. Even though he was supporting the side that lost, Germany, he still won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for producing the Nitrogen fertilizers. A year later he was arrested for causing the deaths of many people during the war.
In times of war, two other elements replaced the use of Bromine and Chloride in the war. These were Molybdenum and Tungsten, two metals. Molybdenum, was used for the German guns and this metal supported the excessive heating of the guns. This did not last the Germans as they had a limited supply and the mine in Colorado was out of reach. Otis King a miner, found an easy way to extract Molybdenum faster, but it ended up flooding the market because an excessive supply. The Germans threatened King to get this useful material. After a few years the U.S. tried to get this metal back, but it was too late. Later, Scott, who had taken the mines from King, became bankrupt after the war. King, on the contrary, became a millionaire by helping Henry Ford strengthen the car model with Molybdenum. Tungsten had a dark place in WWII. It could perforate through armors. Portugal wa the main supplier and ally of the Axis powers. It was one of the strongest metals that could perforate through others. Portugal took the most advantage. The metallic revolution started with the second world war, but metals, after the war became more useful in other things improving day by day with the technology.
When the cell phone industry rose, the need for Tantalum and Niobium rose as well. The Congo, a dense, secluded and poor area in Africa, had vasts amount of it. White people will take advantage of the miners of the Congo to make plenty of profit. The people in the Conge, seeing a little more profit on the mines, decided to abandon the farms, and that worsen their food supply problem that lead to the killing of many native animals. Noticing that did bad, the buyers instead bought these elements from Australia which helped the Congo.
Reflection
This chapter like the rest has a theme. In this case, the theme is war and destruction. Chemistry fits in many areas of study including the diverse sciences, history, mathematics and many other ones. This chapter focused in the history of wars, and how catastrophic they were.
The pattern of the use of chemical substances throughout wars, became ironic. In times of war, the side that had found the most harmful weapon, ended up losing. The Spartans was the first example, as although the Athenians were being suffocated by the nasty odor of Sulfur, they still fought and managed to win. This same thing happened to the French with their lachrymose gases, and the Germans with the rest.
At the beginning I liked Haber, since he helped save lives by creating a fertilizer that would allow food to grow faster. It is very ironic and disappointing that a talent like Haber’s, was wasted on killing people right after saving them. He started to invent very harmful chemicals that killed hundreds during the Chemical warfare. The worse thing is that he did it as to complete his theories without knowing who he had killed, but doing it anyway without measure. I found it very funny that he tried to pay Germany’s debt by getting the dissolved gold from the ocean. That is something I would definitely tell someone. Wars that are caused by greedy desires, cause many fatalities. But it is even worse, when the wars are mostly to brag the chemical technology that is used by the country to kill innocent lives.
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