Aditi Rao NHD Process Paper Mar.

3, 2014 Process Paper An internal drive forces humans to group people into various categories: kind vs. mean, and smart vs. dumb. However, the good vs. bad categorization, which requires the sorting of morality, an inherently grey task, which we convert, for ease, into a simplistic white vs. black, most appeals to me. My love of history was born from this quest to better understand the role of this sorting as it applies to conflicted historical figures. Few exemplify this conflict better than Fritz Haber, the focus of my topic. Haber, a patriotic German played a critical role in Germanys victory in WWI; a victory made possible by the poisonous gases discovered and weaponized by Haber. Yet despite his patriotism, Haber was later disowned by both Germany, for being a Jew, and by the scientific community, for being a killer. This theme therefore allows me to pick a topic that makes people think about the duty of a scientist during war, and Haber is able to provide the perfect study into this. Unlike many other WW I villains, Habers life is not well documented. Apart from prosaic details much of what is written about Haber is based on opinion, rather than fact. Despite this, searching the World War I and scientific archives, I discovered many reliable, informative sources, including both first hand biographies and scholarly articles. Before researching Habers persona, I got a solid World War I primer from Dr. Daniel Walther, the head of Germanic studies at Wartburg College. Dr. Walther provided a historians view on World War I and initial guidance for my project. In addition to multiple online sources and interviews, I also read multiple books including: Thomas Hagers Alchemy of the Air and Daniel Charles Mastermind. With a combination of these sources, I gained a well-developed background into Fritz Habers contributions to chemical warfare in the Great War.

Initially, I wanted to do a documentary, because it would show Habers life in visual details. However, further evaluation convinced me that a picture-based documentary, especially when Habers life was not captured in film, would not be adequate and that a website with its capabilities for providing hyperlinked information would be superior. I used Weebly to create the website, and used previous NHD winners website as examples of how best to present my topic Since the 1900s, warfare has largely been a war of the scientists. Chemists and physicists make possible the weapons decisive in war outcomes, but are often plagued with moralistic duties, specifically that of their duty as a citizen versus duty as a scientist. Because, while they take no oath, it is expected that these crusaders of knowledge work for the benefit of humanity. Going beyond similar dilemmas of Oppenheimer and Einstein, Habers story exemplifies this duty, and the consequences of abandoning one responsibility for another. This website allow me to bring up this important and interesting debate and address: what is the right of a scientist?