Haber was born in Breslau, Germany, which is now part of Poland. Drawn to the new field of physical chemistry, which had just been established by Russian-German chemist Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) and other scientists, Haber was reluctant to stay at home and enter his father's business of selling dyes and other pigments. Haber obtained his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1891 and became a professor at the University of Dahlem in 1898. Haber's early research in electrochemistry resulted in the invention of the first glass electrode. This device became the most common, convenient method of measuring the acidity of solutions. Haber, who had studied under Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, was also interested in thermal decomposition and other chemical processes that take place in flames. During the early 1900s, one of the problems facing scientists worldwide was the eventual depletion of a natural resource--Chile saltpeter (sodium nitrate, or NaNO...