Without Fritz...

[RedAlert 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

This isn't an urgent topic, but I did a report of Fritz for science in the beginning of the year, and I've been researching him more thoroughly as of late. I only chose him because of his *BLEEP*ing name, little did I know he would intrigue me so much.

Where do you think the world would be if Fritz Haber was never born?

Though many people aren't sure of who Fritz Haber is, he made a huge impact on the world, particularly during World War One. He developed the use of chlorine gasses as a means of warfare for Germany. These gasses proved to be highly successful (though also slightly blunderous at times), and were a large contributor to the astronomical death toll of World War One, as other countries adopted Germany's tactics.

Do you think the population would be considerably higher?

More survivors, more children, higher population. See next question for more details.

Would the Jews be happier?

Though Fritz haber did not develop Zyklon B, the gas that was used in gas chambers during the Holocaust, his associates, who were inspired by his work, developed the gas. Had Fritz Haber never sparked the Chemical Warfare era, these gasses may have never been developed and used to kill the Jews. The Nazis may have used other means to kill the Jews, but who's to say as many Jews would have been killed if there was no convenient way to kill them.

Would chemical warfare have been developed without his innovation?

Uh, see above.

How much would WWI have changed? Would there ever be a WWII?

Again, death tolls. Since gas had such a large impact on France's death toll, and they were the ones who pushed the Treaty of Versailles so diligently, perhaps with a more lenient treaty the Germans would have never allowed Hitler into power, therefore totally averting World War Two, though another one may have happened eventually in its stead, but you never know. It's impossibly to speculate what may have changed, but surely without Fritz Haber history would have been much different.

How do you think Fritz Haber impacted the world?

[cangor 0]

I dunno. You can argue both ways about this guy. I mean, the fact that he engineered gases for chemical warfare is bad, but, it's war, and that's what happens in war. War is terrible, war is nasty, war is inhuman. Chemical warfare is awful, but it's just as bad as shooting someone with guns and, in my eyes, not that different. It's all bad, and I think war is just awful in the first place. On the other hand, he figured out how to get ammonia, which is used in a bunch of things, so that's a good thing. According to the article he also developed gas masks, so he did other good stuff. I don't think chemical warfare is what caused world war two, though, and I'm sure someone else would have invented it without his work, so, I dunno, like I said. Are we really to say that this guy is that awful? He was a scientist, and he discovered something terrible that was used for bad. We could say the guys who developed nuclear weapons are a lot worse, but we don't, because we used them. I mean, how's that for comparison. What this guy did is bad, but, I mean, gee, talk about moral relativism... nuclear weapons are a lot nastier and have caused a lot more problems.