THE FREAKING ATOM BOMB!

I mean, you can argue it's basically every darn weapon of mass destruction ever created. And I agree with that a hundred percent. But of all WMDs none shook the world and altered not only the way of thinking, but the way of life of billions of people on the planet, like the atom bombs.

It showed the world just how dark the human heart is and took the brutality of war to a whole new level. Imagine how it felt when people found out it is possible that life on earth could be totally annihilated- with a single push of a button.

One second it was nothing more than the stuff of fiction, unbelievable to some even in that form, and the next second it was real. Just like that. It was so real and so unbelievable that even J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan project--the group of erudite scientists, nobel lauretes etc that invented the first nuclear weapon-- marveled incredulously at his own invention, musing famously that:

"Now I have become death; the destroyer of worlds."

What invention could be worse than the one which made its inventor believe that he has become death and the destroyer of worlds; paralleling himself with one of the powerful gods in Hindu scriptures, who is the owner of the original quote btw.

Another terrible invention (and inventor) worth mentioning is the use of biological weapons: i.e nerve gases and others, which are also weapons of mass destruction.

They're particularly interesting because of the inventor, Fritz Haber, a brilliant scientist who was also a Nobel laureate. The nerve gas he invented was described as a strange yellow-grey coloured cloud floating across no-man's land. In its first deployment Haber himself was present to inspect his invention first hand. Gallant men fell like swathed flies, in no time at all they began to fall over, coughing and spurting, rolling in agony, gasping for air and then frothing from the mouth. Thousands died and his work was complete.

Now it may seem unbelievable, but this was the same Fritz Haber who invented the Haber Process. A way by which ammonia can be synthesized cheaply using atmospheric hydrogen. This same process is the reason we are now able to produce close to 450 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer per year, meaning that billions of people--including you and I--are able to eat as our palates desire. Thanks to this same process millions of lives around the world are saved yearly.

And it was the same Fritz Haber who killed countless men with his invention. Why? The answer is simple: War.

Fritz Haber believed he was fighting for his country, and, after all like they say, all is fair in love and war. Now it's unclear whether violence and war is a trait that is a natural part of man as breathing or eating, or maybe we just choose violence. If you choose to believe like me that man is not a depraved being then you would also agree with my conclusion that perhaps the worst thing ever invented is War itself!