Fritz Haber (Photo/Beijing News)

Award: Synthesizing ammonia from air

In the history of Nobel Prize, some winners have have been subjected to widespread criticism, while others who have been regarded as deserving of the prize were never favored with the award.

Fritz Haber was the first scientist to synthesize ammonia from air, ending the need to rely on natural nitrogenous fertilizers. Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 because of this development.

However, Haber was also notorious for the invention of toxic gases including chlorine and mustard gas. During World War I, Haber was made head of the Chemistry Section in the German Ministry of War, taking charge of the research into and production of these gases, which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Although Haber did not win his award for these toxic gases, there was tremendous controversy around the question whether this scientist, who claimed that his poisonous gases would have the virtue of ending wars quicker, was a suitable recipient of the prize.

In contrast Jocelyn Bell, a Northern Irish astrophysicist, was a victim of unfair treatment. As a postgraduate student of English physicist Antony Hewish in the late 1960s, Bell discovered the first radio pulsars by analyzing statistical data from interspatial radio waves. But it was Bell’s supervisor, Hewish, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of pulsars. His student Bell, the true discoverer of pulsars, did not even appear on the list.

The article is edited and translated from《那些年“颁错”的诺贝尔奖》, source: Beijing News, author: Chu Xinyan