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121 Haber, Fritz
SUBJECT AREA: Chemical technology[br]b. 9 December 1868 Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland)d. 29 January 1934 Basel, Switzerland[br]German chemist, inventor of the process for the synthesis of ammonia.[br]Haber's father was a manufacturer of dyestuffs, so he studied organic chemistry at Berlin and Heidelberg universities to equip him to enter his father's firm. But his interest turned to physical chemistry and remained there throughout his life. He became Assistant at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe in 1894; his first work there was on pyrolysis and electrochemistry, and he published his Grundrisse der technischen Electrochemie in 1898. Haber became famous for thorough and illuminating theoretical studies in areas of growing practical importance. He rose through the academic ranks and was appointed a full professor in 1906. In 1912 he was also appointed Director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at Dahlem, outside Berlin.Early in the twentieth century Haber invented a process for the synthesis of ammonia. The English chemist and physicist Sir William Crookes (1832–1919) had warned of the danger of mass hunger because the deposits of Chilean nitrate were becoming exhausted and nitrogenous fertilizers would not suffice for the world's growing population. A solution lay in the use of the nitrogen in the air, and the efforts of chemists centred on ways of converting it to usable nitrate. Haber was aware of contemporary work on the fixation of nitrogen by the cyanamide and arc processes, but in 1904 he turned to the study of ammonia formation from its elements, nitrogen and hydrogen. During 1907–9 Haber found that the yield of ammonia reached an industrially viable level if the reaction took place under a pressure of 150–200 atmospheres and a temperature of 600°C (1,112° F) in the presence of a suitable catalyst—first osmium, later uranium. He devised an apparatus in which a mixture of the gases was pumped through a converter, in which the ammonia formed was withdrawn while the unchanged gases were recirculated. By 1913, Haber's collaborator, Carl Bosch had succeeded in raising this laboratory process to the industrial scale. It was the first successful high-pressure industrial chemical process, and solved the nitrogen problem. The outbreak of the First World War directed the work of the institute in Dahlem to military purposes, and Haber was placed in charge of chemical warfare. In this capacity, he developed poisonous gases as well as the means of defence against them, such as gas masks. The synthetic-ammonia process was diverted to produce nitric acid for explosives. The great benefits and achievement of the Haber-Bosch process were recognized by the award in 1919 of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but on account of Haber's association with chemical warfare, British, French and American scientists denounced the award; this only added to the sense of bitterness he already felt at his country's defeat in the war. He concentrated on the theoretical studies for which he was renowned, in particular on pyrolysis and autoxidation, and both the Karlsruhe and the Dahlem laboratories became international centres for discussion and research in physical chemistry.With the Nazi takeover in 1933, Haber found that, as a Jew, he was relegated to second-class status. He did not see why he should appoint staff on account of their grandmothers instead of their ability, so he resigned his posts and went into exile. For some months he accepted hospitality in Cambridge, but he was on his way to a new post in what is now Israel when he died suddenly in Basel, Switzerland.[br]Bibliography1898, Grundrisse der technischen Electrochemie.1927, Aus Leben und Beruf.Further ReadingJ.E.Coates, 1939, "The Haber Memorial Lecture", Journal of the Chemical Society: 1,642–72.M.Goran, 1967, The Story of Fritz Haber, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press (includes a complete list of Haber's works).LRD -
122 Lauste, Eugène Augustin
[br]b. 1857 Montmartre, France d. 1935[br]French inventor who devised the first practicable sound-on-film system.[br]Lauste was a prolific inventor who as a 22-year-old had more than fifty patents to his name. He joined Edison's West Orange Laboratory as Assistant to W.K.L. Dickson in 1887; he was soon involved in the development of early motion pictures, beginning an association with the cinema that was to dominate the rest of his working life. He left Edison in 1892 to pursue an interest in petrol engines, but within two years he returned to cinematography, where, in association with Major Woodville Latham, he introduced small but significant improvements to film-projection systems. In 1900 an interest in sound recording, dating back to his early days with Edison, led Lauste to begin exploring the possibility of recording sound photographically on film alongside the picture. In 1904 he moved to England, where he continued his experiments, and by 1907 he had succeeded in photographing a sound trace and picture simultaneously, each image occupying half the width of the film.Despite successful demonstrations of Lauste's system on both sides of the Atlantic, he enjoyed no commercial success. Handicapped by lack of capital, his efforts were finally brought to an end by the First World War. In 1906 Lauste had filed a patent for his sound-on-film system, which has been described by some authorities as the master patent for talking pictures. Although this claim is questionable, he was the first to produce a practicable scund-on-film system and establish the basic principles that were universally followed until the introduction of magnetic sound.[br]Bibliography11 August 1906, with Robert R.Haines and John S.Pletts, British Patent no. 18,057 (sound-on-film system).Further ReadingThe most complete accounts of Lauste's work and the history of sound films can be found in the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture (and Television) Engineers.For an excellent account of Lauste's work, see the Report of the Historical Committee, 1931, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engin eers 16 (January):105–9; and Merritt Crawford, 1941, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, 17 (October) 632–44.For good general accounts of the evolution of sound in the cinema, see: E.I.Sponable, 1947, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 48:275–303 and 407–22; E.W.Kellog, 1955, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 64:291–302 and 356–74.JWBiographical history of technology > Lauste, Eugène Augustin
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123 Mitscherlich, Alexander
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. 28 May 1836 Berlin, Germanyd. 31 May 1918 Oberstdorf, Germany[br]German inventor of sulphite wood pulp for papermaking.[br]Mitscherlich had an impeccable scientific background; his father was the celebrated chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich, discoverer of the law of isomorphism, and his godfather was Alexander von Humboldt. At first his progress at school failed to live up to this auspicious beginning and his father would only sanction higher studies if he first qualified as a teacher so as to assure a means of livelihood. Alexander rose to the occasion and went on to gain his doctorate at the age of 25 in the field of mineralogical chemistry. He worked for a few years as Assistant to the distinguished chemists Wöhler in Göttingen and Wurtz in Paris. On his father's death in 1863, he succeeded him as teacher of chemistry in the University of Berlin. In 1868 he accepted a post in the newly established Forest Academy in Hannoversch-Munden, teaching chemistry, physics and geology. The post offered little financial advantage, but it left him more time for research. It was there that he invented the process for producing sulphite wood pulp.The paper industry was seeking new raw materials. Since the 1840s pulp had been produced mechanically from wood, but it was unsuitable for making fine papers. From the mid-1860s several chemists began tackling the problem of separating the cellulose fibres from the other constituents of wood by chemical means. The American Benjamin C.Tilghman was granted patents in several countries for the treatment of wood with acid or bisulphite. Carl Daniel Ekman in Sweden and Karl Kellner in Austria also made sulphite pulp, but the credit for devising the process that came into general use belongs to Mitscherlich. His brother Oskar came to him at the Academy with plans for producing pulp by the action of soda, but the results were inferior, so Mitscherlich substituted calcium bisulphite and in the laboratory obtained good results. To extend this to a large-scale process, he was forced to set up his own mill, where he devised the characteristic towers for making the calcium bisulphite, in which water trickling down through packed lime met a rising current of sulphur dioxide. He was granted a patent in Luxembourg in 1874 and a German one four years later. The sulphite process did not make him rich, for there was considerable opposition to it; government objected to the smell of sulphur dioxide, forestry authorities were anxious about the inroads that might be made into the forests and his patents were contested. In 1883, with the support of an inheritance from his mother, Mitscherlich resigned his post at the Academy to devote more time to promoting his invention. In 1897 he at last succeeded in settling the patent disputes and achieving recognition as the inventor of sulphite pulp. Without this raw material, the paper industry could never have satisfied the insatiable appetite of the newspaper presses.[br]Further ReadingH.Voorn "Alexander Mitscherlich, inventor of sulphite wood pulp", Paper Maker 23(1): 41–4.LRDBiographical history of technology > Mitscherlich, Alexander
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124 Perkin, Sir William Henry
[br]b. 12 March 1838 London, Englandd. 14 July 1907 Sudbury, England[br]English chemist, discoverer of aniline dyes, the first synthetic dyestuffs.[br]He early showed an aptitude for chemistry and in 1853 entered the Royal College of Chemistry as a student under A.W.von Hofmann, the first Professor at the College. By the end of his first year, he had carried out his first piece of chemical research, on the action of cyanogen chloride on phenylamine, which he published in the Journal of the Chemical Society (1857). He became honorary assistant to von Hofmann in 1857; three years previously he had set up his own chemical laboratory at home, where he had discovered the first of the azo dyes, aminoazonapththalene. In 1856 Perkin began work on the synthesis of quinine by oxidizing a salt of allyl toluidine with potassium dichromate. Substituting aniline, he obtained a dark-coloured precipitate which proved to possess dyeing properties: Perkin had discovered the first aniline dye. Upon receiving favourable reports on the new material from manufacturers of dyestuffs, especially Pullars of Perth, Perkin resigned from the College and turned to the commercial exploitation of his discovery. This proved highly successful. From 1858, the dye was manufactured at his Greenford Green works as "Aniline Purple" or "Tyrian Purple". It was later to be referred to by the French as mauve. Perkin's discovery led to the development of the modern dyestuffs industry, supplanting dyes from the traditional vegetable sources. In 1869, he introduced two new methods for making the red dye alizarin, in place of the process that involved the use of the madder plant (Rubia tinctorum). In spite of German competition, he dominated the British market until the end of 1873. After eighteen years in chemical industry, Perkin retired and devoted himself entirely to the pure chemical research which he had been pursuing since the 1850s. He eventually contributed ninety papers to the Chemical Society and further papers to other bodies, including the Royal Society. For example, in 1867 he published his synthesis of unsaturated organic acids, known as "Perkin's synthesis". Other papers followed, on the structure of "Aniline Purple". In 1881 Perkin drew attention to the magnetic-rotatory power of some of the substances he had been dealing with. From then on, he devoted particular attention to the application of this phenomenon to the determination of chemical structure.Perkin won wide recognition for his discoveries and other contributions to chemistry.The half-centenary of his great discovery was celebrated in July 1906 and later that year he received a knighthood.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1906. FRS 1866. President, Chemical Society 1883–5. President, Society of Chemical Industry 1884–5. Royal Society Royal Medal 1879; Davy Medal 1889.Bibliography26 August 1856, British patent no. 1984 (Aniline Purple).1867, "The action of acetic anhydride upon the hydrides of salicyl, etc.", Journal of the Chemical Society 20:586 (the first description of Perkin's synthesis).Further ReadingS.M.Edelstein, 1961, biography in Great Chemists, ed. E.Farber, New York: Interscience, pp. 757–72 (a reliable, short account).R.Meldola, 1908, Journal of the Chemical Society 93:2,214–57 (the most detailed account).LRDBiographical history of technology > Perkin, Sir William Henry
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125 Saniter, Ernest Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1863 Middlesbrough, Englandd. 2 November 1934 Rotherham, Yorkshire[br]English chemist and metallurgist who introduced a treatment to remove sulphur from molten iron.[br]Saniter spent three years as a pupil in J.E.Stead's chemical laboratory in Middlesbrough, and then from 1883 was employed in the same town as Assistant Chemist at the new North-Eastern Steelworks. In 1890 he became Chief Chemist to the Wigan Coal and Iron Company in Lancashire. There he devised a desulphurizing treatment for molten iron and steel, based upon the presence of abundant lime together with calcium chloride. Between 1898 and 1904 he was in the Middlesbrough district once more, employed by Dorman Long \& Co. and Bell Brothers in experiments which led to the establishment of Teesside's first large-scale basic open-hearth steel plant. Calcium fluoride (fluorspar), mentioned in Saniter's 1892 patent, soon came to replace the calcium chloride; with this modification, his method retained wide applicability throughout the era of open-hearth steel. In 1904 Saniter became chief metallurgist to Steel, Peech \& Tozer Limited of Sheffield, and he remained in this post until 1928. Throughout the last forty years of his life he participated in the discussion of steelmaking developments and practices.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsVice-President, Iron and Steel Institute 1927–34. Iron and Steel Institute (London) Bessemer Gold Medal 1910.Bibliography1892. "A new process for the purification of iron and steel from sulphur", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 2:216–22.1893. "A supplementary paper on a new process for desulphurising iron and steel", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 1:73–7. 29 October 1892, British patent no. 8,612.15 October 1892, British patent no. 8,612A. 29 July 1893, British patent no. 17, 692.28 October 1893, British patent no. 23,534.Further ReadingK.C.Barraclough, 1990, Steelmaking: 1850–1900 458, London: Institute of Metals, 271– 8.JKA -
126 Strachey, Christopher
SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology[br]b. 16 November 1916 Englandd. 18 May 1975 Oxford, England[br]English physicist and computer engineer who proposed time-sharing as a more efficient means of using a mainframe computer.[br]After education at Gresham's School, London, Strachey went to King's College, Cambridge, where he completed an MA. In 1937 he took up a post as a physicist at the Standard Telephone and Cable Company, then during the Second World War he was involved in radar research. In 1944 he became an assistant master at St Edmunds School, Canterbury, moving to Harrow School in 1948. Another change of career in 1951 saw him working as a Technical Officer with the National Research and Development Corporation, where he was involved in computer software and hardware design. From 1958 until 1962 he was an independent consultant in computer design, and during this time (1959) he realized that as mainframe computers were by then much faster than their human operators, their efficiency could be significantly increased by "time-sharing" the tasks of several operators in rapid succession. Strachey made many contributions to computer technology, being variously involved in the design of the Manchester University MkI, Elliot and Ferranti Pegasus computers. In 1962 he joined Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory as a senior research fellow at Churchill College and helped to develop the programming language CPL. After a brief period as Visiting Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he returned to the UK in 1966 as Reader in Computation and Fellow of Wolfeon College, Oxford, to establish a programming research group. He remained there until his death.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsDistinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society 1972.Bibliography1961, with M.R.Wilkes, "Some proposals for improving the efficiency of Algol 60", Communications of the ACM 4:488.1966, "Systems analysis and programming", Scientific American 25:112. 1976, with R.E.Milne, A Theory of Programming Language Semantics.Further ReadingJ.Alton, 1980, Catalogue of the Papers of C. Strachey 1916–1975.M.Campbell-Kelly, 1985, "Christopher Strachey 1916–1975. A biographical note", Annals of the History of Computing 7:19.M.R.Williams, 1985, A History of Computing Technology, London: Prentice-Hall.KF -
127 Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander
[br]b. 13 April 1892 Brechin, Angus, Scotlandd. 6 December 1973 Inverness, Scotland[br]Scottish engineer and scientific adviser known for his work on radar.[br]Following education at Brechin High School, Watson-Watt entered University College, Dundee (then a part of the University of St Andrews), obtaining a BSc in engineering in 1912. From 1912 until 1921 he was Assistant to the Professor of Natural Philosophy at St Andrews, but during the First World War he also held various posts in the Meteorological Office. During. this time, in 1916 he proposed the use of cathode ray oscillographs for radio-direction-finding displays. He joined the newly formed Radio Research Station at Slough when it was opened in 1924, and 3 years later, when it amalgamated with the Radio Section of the National Physical Laboratory, he became Superintendent at Slough. At this time he proposed the name "ionosphere" for the ionized layer in the upper atmosphere. With E.V. Appleton and J.F.Herd he developed the "squegger" hard-valve transformer-coupled timebase and with the latter devised a direction-finding radio-goniometer.In 1933 he was asked to investigate possible aircraft counter-measures. He soon showed that it was impossible to make the wished-for radio "death-ray", but had the idea of using the detection of reflected radio-waves as a means of monitoring the approach of enemy aircraft. With six assistants he developed this idea and constructed an experimental system of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) in which arrays of aerials were used to detect the reflected signals and deduce the bearing and height. To realize a practical system, in September 1936 he was appointed Director of the Bawdsey Research Station near Felixstowe and carried out operational studies of radar. The result was that within two years the East Coast of the British Isles was equipped with a network of radar transmitters and receivers working in the 7–14 metre band—the so-called "chain-home" system—which did so much to assist the efficient deployment of RAF Fighter Command against German bombing raids on Britain in the early years of the Second World War.In 1938 he moved to the Air Ministry as Director of Communications Development, becoming Scientific Adviser to the Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940, then Deputy Chairman of the War Cabinet Radio Board in 1943. After the war he set up Sir Robert Watson-Watt \& Partners, an industrial consultant firm. He then spent some years in relative retirement in Canada, but returned to Scotland before his death.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsKnighted 1942. CBE 1941. FRS 1941. US Medal of Merit 1946. Royal Society Hughes Medal 1948. Franklin Institute Elliot Cresson Medal 1957. LLD St Andrews 1943. At various times: President, Royal Meteorological Society, Institute of Navigation and Institute of Professional Civil Servants; Vice-President, American Institute of Radio Engineers.Bibliography1923, with E.V.Appleton \& J.F.Herd, British patent no. 235,254 (for the "squegger"). 1926, with J.F.Herd, "An instantaneous direction reading radio goniometer", Journal ofthe Institution of Electrical Engineers 64:611.1933, The Cathode Ray Oscillograph in Radio Research.1935, Through the Weather Hours (autobiography).1936, "Polarisation errors in direction finders", Wireless Engineer 13:3. 1958, Three Steps to Victory.1959, The Pulse of Radar.1961, Man's Means to his End.Further ReadingS.S.Swords, 1986, Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar, Stevenage: Peter Peregrinus.KFBiographical history of technology > Watson-Watt, Sir Robert Alexander
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