Sunday, April 16, 2017

Chapter 11: The Lawsuit and Bringing Einstein to Germany

Hoechst wanted to stop BASF from being the only one that could use this process or at least get some information on how the process works. Haber soon heard about the lawsuit after he just settled into his own scientific palace where he got a huge salary, a villa, a chair at the University of Berlin, membership to the Prussian Academy of Science, 35,000 marks a year for his university, and finally 300,000 marks a year just to keep it running. The palace was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. It was here just for the best scientists in the world. Since Haber was a Jew it was hard for him to show his loyalty to Germany so when the institute was built it helped the Jews show they were loyal to Germany since they couldn’t have high positions in the army to show their loyal. Many Jews sent money to get the insitute started. Jews were about one percent of the population, but thirty-five percent of the funding was from Jews. Haber’s family was also very proud of him. His wife hated he was away so much, but she soon saw it was all worth it and at this pointed everyone was talking about him getting a nobel prize.When  the lawsuit arrived Haber freaked out. His life was finally perfect and now it could be all ruined. BASF told him to send all the patents he had over to them. When the trial began at a national court. Ostwald was bitter and wanted to prove that Haber’s results were just things that were already known to the world of science. Ostwald said that every patent Haber has should become null because everyone has been doing these things with high pressure for many years. When the research director August Bernthsen went to the stand he had just a brief answer. This made the Hoechst people very happy because it meant they had a big chance at winning. A surprising twist of events came when Nernst and Haber walked through the courtroom together. Nernst went to stand and said that everything that Haber did was completely different than what Ostwald and he did. Haber made amazing new strides in science. Nernst said that Haber deserved this patent because he made an entirely new process. Hoechst was stunned one of the representatives even said “we might as well go home”. The trial was over and it seemed that Haber and Nernst's feud was too. A few weeks later Nernst got a job as an expert consultant BASF paying him a huge salary.
Bosch was relieved after the lawsuit, but he didn’t take time to celebrate. The machine prototypes were pouring out tons and tons of ammonia. It was time to build the actual thing. The board at BASF gave the green light to make the machine at full size. The construction at Oppau started on May 7th 1911. The factory machines were to be four times bigger than the prototype. The factory also included shipping centers, housing and transportation for the workers, labs, and much more. Over ten thousand people were to work there. About 16 months later BASF was making profits that no one imagined. The Chileans had a hard time keeping up and as soon as a ton of ammonia was made it was already sold. Everyone other project for nitrogen fixing that BASF had they got rid of. The machine Haber made needed less energy, could be made so much bigger, and didn’t need waterfalls to make it work. Once everything was made making ammonia was very cheap, the thing that was costing the most was getting the hydrogen. Bosch wasn’t satisfied he want even bigger machines. In 1913 they did make the biggest that the machines could get because steel makers said it wasn’t possible to make it bigger. Bosch was pleased with this and hired about 2,000 more workers. The things that were happening at this factory had never been done before at an industrial level. This ended up making a new area of science: Pressure Chemistry. Bosch had a bigger idea, if pressure can do all this what else can it do?
While Bosch was doing all this Nernst and Max Planck were working on getting the best physics theoretician in the world to come to Berlin this man's name was Albert Einstein.



Albert Einstein

Einstein was born in Germany, but due to his views on their military operations he left. Planck and Nernst wanted to show the world that Germany was sciences world leader. The offer made to Einstein was a huge salary increase, support for his research, and he would be the youngest person ever to be in the Prussian Academy of Science. He finally took the job because of his marriage falling apart and his cousin Elsa lived in Germany. Einstein was in love with his cousin Elsa. Einstein didn’t like Nernst and Planck very much because when they were trying to get him to come to Germany he said they looked like they wanted to collect me like a stamp. Haber wanted Einstein in germany so bad, but when they met they were complete opposites. Haber who was the perfect German while EInstein despised Germany and was a free thinker. Even though they respected each other Einstein wrote about how egoism consumed Haber. Haber and Einstein became very good friends after while. Einstein even tutored Haber’s son in math. Then when Einstein's wife left with their two sons Haber was Einstein's crying should and helped him get through the divorce. Einstein said he wouldn’t of gotten through it without Haber. During this time war was breaking out all over the world including Germany declaring war on Russia. Einstein said how crazy this war was and how Germany’s mind set is delusional while Haber said he signed up for service already.

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