DOCSLIB.ORG

Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact Vaclav Smil OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Creating the Twentieth Century This page intentionally left blank Creating the Twentieth Century Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact Vaclav Smil 1 2005 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright ᭧ 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smil, Vaclav. Creating the twentieth century : technical innovations of 1867–1914 and their lasting impact / Vaclav Smil. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-516874-4 ISBN: 0-19-516874-7 1. Technological innovations—History—19th century. 2. Technological innovations—History—20th century. I. Title. T173.8.S615 2004 609'.034—dc22 2004054757 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface This book has been on my mind for more than three decades. My first musings about the technically exceptional nature of the two pre-WWI generations go back to the late 1960s, before Eva and I escaped from a newly invaded province of the Soviet Empire to Pennsylvanian ridge and valley countryside. I worked on some of its topics (for other publications) during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, and I finally began to write it in 2002. In the words that my favorite composer used in dedicating his quartets, it is the result of lunga, e laboriosa fattica—and yet I wish that the task could continue. I have a selfish and an objective reason for this: further immersion in the world of pre-WWI innovations would bring more revelations, surprises, and confir- mations, and I would also like more space as there are many topics that I addressed only cursorily, many reflections and considerations that I had to leave out. At the same time, I have always followed Faraday’s great dictum— work, finish, publish—and so here is my incomplete and imperfect story of one of the greatest adventures in history, my homage to the creators of a new world. My great intellectual debt to hundreds of historians, engineers, and econ- omists without whose penetrative work this volume could not have been writ- ten is obvious, and I must thank Douglas Fast for completing the unusually challenging job of preparing more than 120 images that are an integral part of this book. And I offer no apologies for what some may see as too many numbers: without quantification, there is no real appreciation of the era’s fun- damental and speedy achievements and of the true magnitude of its accom- plishments. Metric system and scientific units and prefixes (listed and defined below) are used throughout. Finally, what not to expect. This is neither a world history of the two pre-WWI generations seen through a prism of tech- nical innovations nor an economic history of the period written with an en- gineering slant. The book is not intended to be either an extended argument for technical determinism in human affairs or an uncritical exaltation of an era. I am quite vi preface content to leave its genre undefined: it is simply an attempt to tell a story of amazing changes, of the greatest discontinuity in history, and to do so from a multitude of perspectives in order to bring out the uniqueness of the period and to be reminded of the lasting debt we owe to those who invented the fundamentals of the modern world. Or, to paraphrase Braudel’s (1950) remarks offered in a different context, I do not seek a philosophy of this great discon- tinuity but rather its multiple illumination. Contents Units and Abbreviations ix 1 The Great Inheritance 3 2 The Age of Electricity 33 3 Internal Combustion Engines 99 4 New Materials and New Syntheses 153 5 Communication and Information 199 6 A New Civilization 259 7 Contemporary Perceptions 303 References 313 Name Index 337 Subject Index 343 This page intentionally left blank Units and Abbreviations Units A ampere (unit of current) C degree of Celsius (unit of temperature) g gram (unit of mass) h hour hp horsepower (traditional unit of power ϭ 745.7 W) Hz hertz (unit of frequency) J joule (unit of energy) K degree of Kelvin (unit of temperature) lm lumen (unit of luminosity) m meter Pa pascal (unit of pressure) s second t metric ton (ϭ 1,000 kg) V volt (unit of voltage) W watt (unit of power) Prefixes n nano 10Ϫ9 µ micro 10Ϫ6 m milli 10Ϫ3 c centi 10Ϫ2 h hecto 102 k kilo 103 M mega 106 G giga 109 T tera 1012 P peta 1015 E exa 1018 ix This page intentionally left blank Creating the Twentieth Century 1 The Great Inheritance “You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted...” “Is not that a rather large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair. “I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you...” H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1894) Imagine an exceedingly sapient and durable civilization that began scanning a bubble of space, say 100 light years in diameter, for signs of intelligent life about half a billion years ago. Its principal surveillance techniques look for any emissions of organized electromagnetic radiation as opposed to the radio fre- quencies emitted from stars or light that originates from natural combustion of carbon compounds (wildfires) or from lightning. For half a billion years its probes that roam the interstellar space have nothing to report from nine planets frontispiece 1. Technical advances that began to unfold during the two pre-WWI generations and that created the civilization of the 20th century resulted in the first truly global human impacts. Some of these are detectable from space, and nighttime images of Earth (here the Americas in the year 2000) are perhaps the most dramatic way to show this unprecedented change. Before 1880 the entire continents were as dark as the heart of Amazon remains today. This image is based on NASA’s composite available at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html. 3 4 creating the twentieth century that revolve around an unremarkable star located three-fifths of the way from the center of an ordinary-looking spiral galaxy that moves inexorably on a collision course with one of its neighbors. And then, suddenly, parts of that star system’s third planet begin to light up, and shortly afterward they begin to transmit coherent signals as two kinds of radiation emanating from Earth’s surface provide evidence of intelligent life. A closer approach of the probes would reveal an organized pattern of night- time radiation in the visible (400–700 nm) and near-infrared (700–1,500 nm) part of the electromagnetic spectrum produced by electric lights whose density is highest in the planet’s most affluent and heavily populated regions (see the frontispiece to this chapter). And from scores of light years away one can detect a growing multitude of narrow-band, pulsed, modulated signals in frequencies ranging from less than 30 kHz (very low radio band) to more than 1 GHz (radar bands). These signals have their origins in fundamental scientific and technical advances of the 1880s and 1890s, that is, in the invention of durable incandescent electric lights, in the introduction of commercial generation and transmission of electricity, in production and detection of Hertzian waves, and in the first tentative wireless broadcasts. And all of these capabilities became considerably developed and commercialized before WWI. That was the time when the modern world was created, when the greatest technical discontinuity in history took place. This conclusion defies the com- mon perception of the 20th century as the period of unprecedented technical advances that originated in systematic scientific research and whose aggressive deployment and commercialization brought profound economic, social, and environmental transformations on scales ranging from local to global. The last two decades of the 20th century witnessed an enormous expansion of increas- ingly more affordable and more powerful computing and of instantaneous access to the globe-spanning World Wide Web, and they have been singled out as a particularly remarkable break with the past. This is as expected ac- cording to those who maintain that the evolution of our technical abilities is an inherently accelerating process (Turney 1999; Kurzweil 1990). This common impression of accelerating technical innovation seems to be borne out by a number of exponential trends, perhaps most notably by the fact that the number of transistors per microchip has been doubling approximately every 18 months since 1972. This trend, known as Moore’s law, was predicted in 1965 by Intel’s cofounder, and it continues despite repeated forecasts of its im- minent demise (Intel 2003; Moore 1965).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Die Nationalsozialistische Rezeption Julius Robert Mayers: Alwin Mittasch Und Das Konzept Der Auslösung
    Die nationalsozialistische Rezeption Julius Robert Mayers: Alwin Mittasch und das Konzept der Auslösung M aria Osietzki, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, W irtschafts- und Technikgeschichte, Universitätsstr. 150, 4630 Bochum 1 Im Jahre 1942 erschien eine vom Reichsforschungsrat in Auftrag gegebene "Gedenkpublikation zur 100. W iederkehr der Entdeckung des Energieerhal­ tungssatzes".1 In ihr kamen Vertreter unterschiedlicher Disziplinen zu W ort, für die der Energieerhaltungssatz von Relevanz war. Im Stil schloß sich die Gedenkschrift weitgehend an die üblicherweise zur Identitätsstiftung der W issenschaft beitragenden Heroisierungen von W issenschaftlern und den zur Aufwertung der eigenen Disziplin bestimmten Rekonstruktionen ihrer Leistun­ gen an. Die meisten Beiträge lagen in einer Linie mit der Rezeptionsgeschichte Mayers vor 1933 und nach 1945. Stellenweise wiesen sie allerdings Passagen auf, die man als bewußte Verbeugung vor den Ambitionen der Nationalsozia­ listen oder als unbewußte Anpassung an ihre Denkweisen interpretieren kann. Im Unterschied dazu stand eine Publikation in der Gedenkschrift für einen Rezeptionsstrang M ayers, der als typisch nationalsozialistisch zu kennzeichnen ist. Er stammt von dem Chemiker Alwin M ittasch (1869-1953), dem erfolgrei­ chen Katalyseforscher und langjährigem Laboratoriumsleiter bei der BASF, der sich im Ruhestand mit philosophischen Fragen befaßte. Er stieß dabei auf eine kurze Schrift von Mayer aus dem Jahre 1876, in der dieser skizzenhaft das Konzept der Auslösung entwickelt hatte.2 Die Faszination, die M ittasch für die­ ses Konzept empfand, bestand in dessen Ergänzung des Energieerhaltungs­ satzes, der auf dem Prinzip "causa aequat effectum" basierte, während die Auslösung vom Grundsatz "kleine Ursache große W irkung" ausging. In dieser dualen Kausalitätsvorstellung sah M ittasch eine Brücke zwischen M aterie und Geist sowie zwischen Leib und Seele.
    [Show full text]
  • CARL BOSCH and HIS MUSEUM Fathi Habashi, Laval University
    Bull. Hist. Chem., VOLUME 35, Number 2 (2010) 111 CARL BOSCH AND HIS MUSEUM Fathi Habashi, Laval University Carl Bosch (1874-1940) (Fig. 1) was for the development of the catalysts. born in Cologne, studied metallurgy Further problems which had to be and mechanical engineering at the Tech- solved were the construction of safe nische Hochschule in Berlin (1894-96), high-pressurized reactors and a cheap then chemistry at Leipzig University, way of producing and cleaning the graduating in 1898. In 1899 he entered gases necessary for the synthesis of the employ of the Badische Anilin- und ammonia. Step by step Bosch went Sodafabrik in Ludwigshafen (Fig. 2) on to using increasingly larger manu- and participated in the development facturing units. In order to solve the of the then new industry of synthetic growing problems posed by materials indigo. and related safety problems, BASF set up the chemical industry’s first When in 1908 the Badische ac- Materials Testing Laboratory in 1912 quired the process of high-pressure to identify and control problems in synthesis of ammonia, which had been materials for instrumentation and developed by Fritz Haber (1868-1934) process engineering. at the Technische Hochschule in Karl- sruhe, Bosch was given the task of The plant in Oppau for the pro- developing this process on an industrial duction of ammonia and nitrogen Figure 1. Carl Bosch (1874-1940) scale. This involved the construction of fertilizers was opened in 1913. Bosch plant and apparatus which would stand up wanted fertilizers to be tested thorough- to working at high gas pressure and high-reaction tem- ly, so that customers were to be given proper instructions peratures.
    [Show full text]
  • Conference Report of the 47Th Jahrestreffen Deutscher
    CHEMCATCHEM CONFERENCE REPORTS DOI: 10.1002/cctc.201402266 German Catalysis on an International Scale in Weimar Juliane Titus,[a] Stefan Kaluza,[b] and Roland Marschall*[c] Dedicated to the memory of Professor Helmut Knçzinger. To Weimar and Beyond In Remembrance of Helmut Knçzinger Over the years, the Annual Meeting of the German Catalysis This year’s conference started with a minute’s silence to honor Society (GeCatS), which traditionally takes place in Weimar, has Prof. Helmut Knçzinger, who died on January 12th, 2014 at the become a constant in the conference calendar of every age of 78. He was a leading scientist in the in situ characteriza- German catalysis researcher. This year’s meeting (March 12th– tion of heterogeneous catalysts. Amongst other roles, he 14th) covered a huge range of catalysis, including recent re- served as chairman of the DECHEMA catalysis section and par- search topics such as thermal, bio-, and photocatalysis. The ticipated in the DECHEMA catalysis working committee. In latter was even put into practice, with the sunshine catalyzing 1998, he was awarded the Alwin Mittasch Medal for his out- scientific discussion and collaborative initiatives in the adjacent standing scientific work. His memory and the resonance of his Weimarhalle park! scientific contributions will remain with us. This year’s conference was not only record-breaking with re- spect to the high temperatures but the scientific program Highlights in Catalysis itself. 582 participants joined this year’s conference (in compar- ison to 519 the year before), in which 38 oral presentations, in- The scientific program began with a plenary lecture by Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Setsuro Tamaru and Fritz Haber: Links Between Japan and Germany In
    Essay DOI: 10.1002/tcr.201402086 Setsuro Tamaru and Fritz Haber: Links THE CHEMICAL between Japan and Germany in Science RECORD and Technology Hideko Tamaru Oyama Department of Chemistry, Rikkyo University, 3-34-1 Nishi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-8501 (Japan), Tel./Fax: (+81) 3-3985-2363, E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: Setsuro Tamaru was my grandfather. He worked with Fritz Haber in Germany on researching the ammonia synthesis process and contributed substantially to the development of scientific research and education in Japan. Although I had never met him, I felt his existence while I grew up, since our house was built by him and had many artifacts brought back from Germany by my grandfather; e.g., a Bechstein upright piano upon which I practiced piano every day and Fritz Haber’s portrait with his handwritten message hung on the wall. This is an account of my grandfather’s life, concentrating on his relationship with Fritz Haber. This story goes back to a time more than a century ago. 1. Early Years in Japan (1879∼1908) Setsuro Tamaru (1879∼1944), shown in Figure 1, was born on November 1, 1879, in Morioka, a region in the northern part of the main island, Honshu, Japan. He was the fourth son of a former clansman of the Nambu clan, Juro (father, 1848∼1892), and Shin (mother, 1850∼1941). His father died when he was 12 years old so his eldest brother, Kinya,[1] sup- ported the big family (his mother, grandmother Koto, and six siblings)[2] by working as a schoolteacher.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Evolution of Catalysts Design and Synthesis
    3 1 Evolution of Catalysts Design and Synthesis: From Bulk Metal Catalysts to Fine Wires and Gauzes, and that to Nanoparticle Deposits, Metal Clusters, and Single Atoms Wey Yang Teoh 1,2 1University of Malaya, Centre for Separation Science and Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2The University of New South Wales, School of Chemical Engineering, Sydney 2052, Australia 1.1 The Cradle of Modern Heterogeneous Catalysts The modern discovery of heterogeneous catalysts stretches as far back as 1800 when Joseph Priestley and Martinus van Marum reported the dehydrogenation of alcohol over a heated metal catalyst, although not too much was thought about the role of the metal catalyst at that time except as a heating source. Then in 1813, Louis Jacques Thénard of École Polytechnique in Paris discovered the decomposi- tion of ammonia to nitrogen and hydrogen over “red-hot metals” and recognized that the phenomenon was due to some catalytic reaction [1, 2]. The concept was followed up by Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution of London who, in 1817, reported the flameless catalytic combustion of coal gas and air over heated platinum wire producing bright white ignition. Their results were reproducible when using palladium, but not on copper, silver, iron, gold, and zinc [1, 3]. These experiments made clear that there was some form of cat- alytic role associated with the different metals. The discovery soon became the basisfortheinventionofthecoalminesafetylamp,alsoknownastheDavy lamp – although mysteriously but rather practically, the use of inefficient steel iron rather than platinum gauze became the standard for Davy lamps.
    [Show full text]
  • One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research
    Bretislav Friedrich · Dieter Hoffmann Jürgen Renn · Florian Schmaltz · Martin Wolf Editors One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences Bretislav Friedrich • Dieter Hoffmann Jürgen Renn • Florian Schmaltz Martin Wolf Editors One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences Editors Bretislav Friedrich Florian Schmaltz Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Max Planck Institute for the History of Society Science Berlin Berlin Germany Germany Dieter Hoffmann Martin Wolf Max Planck Institute for the History of Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Science Society Berlin Berlin Germany Germany Jürgen Renn Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin Germany ISBN 978-3-319-51663-9 ISBN 978-3-319-51664-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941064 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which permits any noncom- mercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
    [Show full text]
  • Mitteilungen Der Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gesellschaft Zu Großbothen E.V. 14
    Mitteilungen der Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gesellschaft zu Großbothen e.V. 14. Jg. 2009, Heft 1 ISSN 1433-3910 _________________________________________________________________ Inhalt Editorial Zur 47. Ausgabe der „Mitteilungen“.................................................................... 5 Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie (Vorlesung 16) Wilhelm Ostwald .......................................................................................... 7 Wilhelm Ostwalds „Geschichte der Elektrochemie“ von 1896 und die Entwicklung der Bioelektrochemie seit Luigi Galvani bis heute Hermann Berg .............................................................................................. 18 Fritz Köhler – Universitäts-Mechaniker bei Wilhelm Ostwald von 1897 bis 1904 Ulf Messow, Wolgang Hönle, Ulf Molzahn.................................................. 25 Die Verantwortung des Wissenschaftlers – Manfred von Ardenne, Klaus Fuchs und das atomare Patt Gerhard Barkleit ......................................................................................... 37 Andere über Ostwald Wladimir und Karin Reschetilowski............................................................. 57 Nachruf auf Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Wetzel Karl-Peter Dostal......................................................................................... 60 Gesellschaftsnachrichten...................................................................................... 64 Protokoll der Mitgliederversammlung vom 21.02.2009 Autorenhinweise..................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • James, Steinhauser, Hoffmann, Friedrich One Hundred Years at The
    James, Steinhauser, Hoffmann, Friedrich One Hundred Years at the Intersection of Chemistry and Physics Published under the auspices of the Board of Directors of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society: Hans-Joachim Freund Gerard Meijer Matthias Scheffler Robert Schlögl Martin Wolf Jeremiah James · Thomas Steinhauser · Dieter Hoffmann · Bretislav Friedrich One Hundred Years at the Intersection of Chemistry and Physics The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society 1911–2011 De Gruyter An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libra- ries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org Aut ho rs: Dr. Jeremiah James Prof. Dr. Dieter Hoffmann Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Institute for the Max Planck Society History of Science Faradayweg 4–6 Boltzmannstr. 22 14195 Berlin 14195 Berlin [email protected] [email protected] Dr. Thomas Steinhauser Prof. Dr. Bretislav Friedrich Fritz Haber Institute of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society Max Planck Society Faradayweg 4–6 Faradayweg 4–6 14195 Berlin 14195 Berlin [email protected] [email protected] Cover images: Front cover: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, 1913. From left to right, “factory” building, main building, director’s villa, known today as Haber Villa. Back cover: Campus of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 2011. The Institute’s his- toric buildings, contiguous with the “Röntgenbau” on their right, house the Departments of Physical Chemistry and Molecular Physics.
    [Show full text]
  • Krebs Collection Books (Octavos)
    Special Collections and Archives: Krebs Collection A collection of around 1250 items from the library of Sir Hans Krebs, Lecturer and subsequently Professor of Biochemistry at Sheffield from 1935 to 1954, and Nobel Prize Winner in 1953 for his work, along with Fritz Lipmann, in discovering in living organisms the series of chemical reactions known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle. For further biographical details, see the collection level description for the Krebs Papers (MS 116). The Krebs Collection consists of over 800 books and periodicals, which have been individually catalogued, and over 400 pamphlets, newspaper cuttings and reprints of journal articles, which have been listed. Some of the material has been annotated by Krebs. Books (octavos) International Neurochemical Conference (1965 : Oxford, England) Variation in chemical composition of the nervous system : as determined by developmental and genetic factors ; edited by G.B. Ansell on behalf of the National Committee of the International Neurochemical Conference, Oxford, 1965. - Oxford : Symposium Publications Division, Pergamon Press, 1966. [M0139812SH] Western Bank Library KREBS COLLECTION 1; 200673119 Reference. Inscribed with Hans Krebs' initials on half-title page. Western Bank Library KREBS COLLECTION 2; 200673120 Reference Ardenne, Manfred, Baron von, 1907- Eine glückliche Jugend im Zeichen der Technik ; Manfred von Ardenne. - Leipzig; Jena; Berlin : Urania Verlag, 1965. [M0135153SH] Western Bank Library KREBS COLLECTION 3; 200673014 Reference. Inscription on flyleaf by the author dated 7/7/66, and letter in reply from Krebs dated 14/7/66, pasted in at the back of the book. Ardenne, Manfred, Baron von, 1907- Ein glückliches Leben für Technik und Forschung : Autobiographie ; Manfred von Ardenne.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Group
    Historical Group OCCASIONAL PAPERS No 7 Nitrogen, Novel High-Pressure Chemistry, and the German War Effort (1900-1918) Anthony S. Travis (Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) The Seventh Wheeler Lecture Royal Society of Chemistry, 22 October 2014 April 2015 Introduction “The story still is told of a Minister, a member of the War Cabinet, who, finding the conversation at a certain dinner turning to the sinister menace of the submarine campaign, then at its height, and its effects especially on the Chile communications, turned to his neighbour with the enquiry: ‘Tell me, what is this nitrate they are all making such a fuss about?’” Stanley I. Levy, “The Status of Chemists and Chemistry”, in Chemistry and Industry, no. 11 (14 March 1924): 285-6. Apocryphal or not, this extract from the correspondence columns of the then new British journal Chemistry and Industry in 1924 exposes the apparent general ignorance in Britain, and also for a time in Germany, of a crucial and even desperate episode in the conduct of what became known as the First Great War. “Nitrate”, a commodity essential to the production of modern explosives employed in warfare, mainly aromatic nitro compounds such as TNT and picric acid, was common currency to all belligerents. Nevertheless outside of scientific and industrial circles the critical roles of what was in fact Chilean nitrate (Chilean saltpetre, or sodium nitrate), extracted from the mineral caliche, and the other nitrogen-containing chemicals of commerce, such as calcium cyanamide and ammonia, as sources of vast destructive power, was generally given little, if any, prominence at the start of the war in early August 1914.
    [Show full text]
  • 75 Anhang. -75
    \VILHELM OSTWALDS Auslosungslehre. 75 Die hohen und hochsten Werte des Menschenlebens, vor aHem in Wissenschaft, Kunst, Moral und Religion bleiben in ihrem Wesenskern yom Begriff "Energie" unbertihrt; das "geistige Prinzip", das schon ROBERT MAYER neben oder besser tiber den Energiebegriff gesetzt hat, ist jeder Energetik unzuganglich. Es ist, als ob WILHELM OSTWALD seIber die Zustandigkeits­ grenzen des Begriffes "Energie", vor allem hinsichtlich Wertungen, mehr und mehr empfunden hatte. Hat er sich ja in seiner letzten Lebensepoche fast ausschliel3lich der Farbenlehre und der "Schonheit des Gesetzes" (siehe "Lebenslinien" III) gewidmet, und mit dem daselbst herrschenden Begriff der Harmonie die Er­ orterung eines Gebietes angeschlagen, in welchem die Begriffe "Energie" und "Aus16sung" nur noch die Rolle untergeordneter dienstbarer Geister zu spielen vermogen. Hier fiihrt die Psyche das Wort, und ein Ausblick eroffnet sich auf eine wahre "Philo­ sophie der W erte" . Fassen wir OSTWALDS Aus16sungslehre im ganzen ins Auge, so gilt, daB sie deutlich den Charakter einer bedeutsamen Uber­ gangserschein ung zeigt, gekennzeichnet durch die Vorztige und Nachteile einer ausgesprochen energetischen Betrachtungs­ weise. Es handelt sich urn einen Ubergang von oberflachlichem Mechanismus zu einem tieferschtirfenden universellen Dynamis­ m us, wie ein solcher sich in der abendlandischen Wissenschaft unserer Tage mehr und mehr durchringt. Das neue Weltbild wird dynamische Naturanschauung sein, nicht mechanische. WILHELM WUNDT. Anhang. Einiges zur Gesamtentwicklung des Aus16sungsbegrifles. A. Von den Anfiingen bis zu Wilhelm Ostwald und Friedrich Nietzsche. Schon im alltaglichen Leben macht sich hinsichtlich des Begriffpaares Ursache-Wirkung eine Zwiefaltigkeit geltend, die den Keim fUr die Unter­ scheidung von Umsetzungs- oder Erhaltungskausalitat (E.K.) und Aus­ losungs- oder AnstoBkausalitat (A.K.), von energetischen Wirkkraften und energetisch mehr oder minder belanglosen Au s los un g s - un d S t e u e­ rungskraften bildet.
    [Show full text]
  • Whitepaper the Digitalization of Catalysis-Related Sciences
    whitepaper The Digitalization of Catalysis-Related Sciences GeCatS whitepaper: the digitalization of catalysis-related sciences Cover Photo: BASF´s Supercomputer QURIOSITY – is an enabler in Digitalization at BASF allowing the calculation of complex model systems in chemistry to speed up development times and reveal hidden correlations, Copyright BASF 2 table of contents 1. Introduction and Motivation 4 Executive Summary of the Core Theses discussed in this Paper 4 1.1 Historical and Present Situation 4 1.2 The Evolution of Theory 5 1.3 Elements of Realization 5 1.4 New Potential 6 1.5 Digital Catalysis Science 6 2. Vision 7 Executive Summary Core Statements “Vision” 7 2.1 Unification of the View on Catalysis 7 2.2 The Active Site 9 2.3 Mastering Complexity 10 2.4 Computer-aided Experimentation 11 2.5 Artificial Intelligence Concepts as Key Enabling Elements in Digital Catalysis 12 3. Mission 14 Executive Summary Core Statements “Mission” 14 3.1 Technical Prerequisites 15 3.2 Five Pillars of Catalysis Specific Data Formats 16 3.3 The FAIR Concept 18 3.4 Chemical Prerequisites 19 4. Objectives 20 Executive Summary Core Statements “Objectives” 20 5. Next Steps 22 Executive Summary Core Statements “Next Steps” 22 5.1 Stepwise Approach 23 6. Conclusion 26 Imprint 27 List of Contributors 27 Publisher 27 3 GeCatS whitepaper: the digitalization of catalysis-related sciences 1. introduction and motivation 1. Introduction and Motivation Catalysis as an interdisciplinary technology field is of stra- ogies relying on economic and sustainable catalytic pro- tegic socio-economic importance. More than 95% of all cesses are required.
    [Show full text]