1772

Nitrogen

• Joseph Black called carbon dioxide
• fixed air.
• Daniel Rutherford was Joseph Black’s
• student.
• Rutherford removed the oxygen from air by having a mouse breathe it until
• it died
• then burning a candle and phosphorus in it until they
• wouldn’t burn
• then passing what remained through a solution to absorb the
• fixed air
• and he called the air that remained
• noxious air.
• *
• Scheele, Cavendish, and Priestley called it burnt air or
• phlogisticated air.
• Antoine Lavoisier called it mephitic air or
• azote,
• which means “lifeless,” because animals
• died in it.

Atomic number 7

• Over three-quarters of the atmosphere on Earth
• is nitrogen
• but in the atmosphere it is an inert triple-bonded
• diatomic gas.
• All amino acids essential in human nutrition
• contain nitrogen
• and nitrogen is also required for our
• DNA.
• To get this nitrogen we depend
• on plants.
• Plants also depend on nitrigen and use
• an enzyme
• to cleave diatomic nitrogen to make ammonia
• or nitrate.
• *
• The energy it takes to cleave diatomic
• nitrogen
• is stored in atomic nitrogen or nitrogen compounds
• and available
• for cleaners, fertilizer, poisons, rocket fuel,
• and explosives.

Stuff that explodes

• Stuff that explodes can be a shock.
• Some don’t remember what happened to them
• even though they must live with the damage.
• The roots of violence are deep, but easy to uncover.
• Famine, war, genocide, persecution, religious extremism
• are the damage, not the stuff that explodes.
• I wish I could claim that victims
• and perpetrators of ignorance, hatred, and greed
• might learn to live in a state of grace.