[pfraze]

One great example of that is the Haber Process. Fritz Haber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber - a controversial figure as you can see) figured out how to synthesize nitrogen fertilizers, which basically solved a hunger crisis that was growing in Europe at the time. As the wiki says, "The food base of half of the current world population is based on the Haber-Bosch process." I originally heard this on a Radiolab episode; they claimed, among other things, it took us from a world capacity of ~1.5bn to ~13bn, and that people needed fertilizer so bad at the time that wars were fought in South America over bat guano. Hey, now we fight over oil.

The guy also gassed Allied troops and felt pretty good about it, so, you know. He had range.