Chapter 5

Summary:
It is said that humans care for others because that is what humans do; unfortunately, there are others who have replaced their care to science. The desire to discover everything about a certain topic is encouraged by everyone, but sadly, some people are too focused on their research that they are blind to their contribution on the real world. In World War I, chemical warfare, although little effect on the battlefield, has not lost hope from everybody. Fritz Haber, one of the greatest mind in history, was interesting in converting chemicals for industrial product. WWI changed the direction of his work by giving him the pride to sever for his country. First he tried to use nitrogen gas to create an area of explosion where it would make contact with the enemy and infect them. Although the explosion worked, the same problem arose just like the Spartan's fire smoke; it had little effect on the battle field. One of the reason is because of the wind; since the gas didn't maintain its position long enough to infect the enemy, it would of been the same result as if they never threw it. He also tried it with bromine and chlorine, but he still faced the same problem. Still, chlorine gas explosion had a faster and stronger effect than the others.
Another advancement occurred with the super heavy siege gun called Big Bertha. This machine is able to eliminate everybody in the field within seconds. But with powerful weapons contain their flaws which includes the long set up and easily broken down by a few fire shots. In order to make the Big Bertha even more sturdy, scientist tried to combing molybdenum with the iron plate. It does make it sturdy but the Germans had little supply of molybdenum. In addition, scientist also discovered another element that can help the durability of the machine. They discovered that tungsten was a better element to add to the steel because of many reasons. First, tungsten has more electrons than molybdenum which means that it will take a lot more energy to make it excited. Also, since its atomic mass is higher, bullets will have a harder time damaging through the though and tight wall of tungsten.
Everything has a connection either with a good one or a bad one. In this world, there will always be a person who will try to take advantage of other people's needs. Portugal was one country that saw the opportunity to gain money by giving the Germans and Americans what they wanted, tungsten and molybdenum. Since Portugal was a neutral country, it was free to assist whoever they want. All that Portugal wanted was money and thanks to the dictatorship from Antonio Salzar. He brilliantly was able to do business with both the Allies and Confederates and in return gained an abundant of money. Congo was also a country which took advantage of the war because they had material needed to build cell phones. Tantalum and niobium were the elements needed make almost all cell phones. Interestingly enough, nobody from Congo administrated a mining system to collect all the supplies needed to sell. Everybody had the right to just take a shovel, mine it on their own, and sell it. Both countries made a fortune since they were lucky enough for their country to contain the material somebody else needed. Unfortunately, it was like they made money killing people since the materials they sold were solely for war.

Reflection:
Chemical warfare to me was a battlefield filled with poisonous gasses which could kill you the second you breath it. Instead, it was literally a waste of time since it had very little effect on the whole war. I can say that it is tricky to use these chemical explosives because only in the right conditions will it be effective. The idea of liquid bromine was interesting because even if there was wind, the liquid would stick to the clothes of the enemy and as it evaporates, it would easily affect the enemy. Just like the other explosives, the right conditions must be present; the temperature is too cold, the liquid bromine would just freeze becoming a solid which will not be able to get into the body of the enemy. Anyways, it is sad to see how scientist would be blinded from their own human morale. I understand that protecting out country is the right thing to do, but I sometimes wonder how far will our pride to protect our country will take us. We have know entered a stage in time where a push of a button will literally destroy whole countries to the point that it is to radioactive to survive there.
Metals are interesting to me because I can only see them as dull colored, strong, and durable material which are used in many applications. I've never heard of increasing the durability of steel by adding a coating of other strong metals. For me, I always though they mixed both metals to produce a mixture of both metals. Still, I am starting to understand more about the Periodic Table and its abundant of information which can be gathered by just looking at them. I do like to analyze patterns, so analyzing the Periodic Table by their columns, rows, specific location, and numerical information will tell me a lot about each element. Now I've learned that when seeing each element from each column from top to left, you can figure out that the bottom have more density, are much stronger, and are mostly solids. The top of each column are less denser and are mostly liquids and gasses.