Kristian Birkeland died #OTD in 1917.
He is best remembered for his theories of atmospheric electric currents that elucidated the nature of the aurora borealis. In order to fund his research on the aurorae, he invented the electromagnetic cannon and the Birkeland–Eyde process of fixing nitrogen from the air. Birkeland was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times. via @Wikipedia
@gutenberg_org @Wikipedia however fixing nitrogen from the air opened the door to cheaper explosives plus fertiliserb but that can be converyed to explosives
@JohnLoader6 @gutenberg_org @Wikipedia
Ammonium nitrate - pretty much the only high explosive that is (or used to be) freely available to buy in any garden centre and in truck-load quantities, from any company supplying fertilizer to farmers!
Also the explosive that flattened half of Beirut when several thousand tons of the stuff went bang following an adjacent fire, whilst being stored (illegally, I believe) in a dock-front warehouse!
