In a large part thanks to this guy, who invented a process for extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere - an invention that now feeds half the Earth's human population.
Don't forget Carl Bosch! Everyone forgets Bosch for some reason. You can't just have chemist discover a process, you need a chemical engineer to make it work on an industrial scale.
Sure, just like if Einstein hadn't discovered relativity someone else possibly/probably would have. And maybe in another part of the multiverse someone else did. It's still interesting to trace back the chain of events that lead us to where we are today, and examine the agents of some of the most impactful events, however incidental they may be
http://www.radiolab.org/story/180132-how-do-you-solve-proble...