Thread by @SpencerKlavan

This is Amon, king of the Egyptian gods. And this is ammonia, the stuff we use in fertilizers. Ammonia is named after Amon. So Amon probably can't send the rains but he can help you unclog your sink. Here's why:

When the Greeks met the Egyptians, they often combined Egyptian gods with their own to highlight similarities in the pantheon. Here's Zeus-Ammon, a combination of the Greek king god and the Egyptian king god (mashups like this are called "syncretism"):

The king of the gods often has ram's horns (see also Marduk in Babylon). Alexander was particularly taken with Zeus-Ammon and liked to think of himself as the god's son. Which is why you'll often see Alexander with horns on coins.

There was a temple to Zeus-Amon at the remote Siwa oasis in modern-day Libya. Remains still stand. Alexander trekked for days to find it. There was a certain kind of salt there which the Romans, naturally, named hammoniacum (after "Ammon").

Now this was probably not the substance we now call salammoniac, which can be used in scouring metals. But people thought it was in the 16th century, so this substance got the name of the salt near the temple of Zeus-Ammon.

Salammoniac contains ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), and it can react with alkali to produce the gas now called ammonia. Both are named after the original hammoniacum, even though that probably *wasn't* salammoniac, but it is now because words.

Anyway a great way to get ammonia is to combine nitrogen and hydrogen in a process called the Haber process, after the 20th century German chemist Fritz Haber, seen here looking like the Germaniest, chemistiest German chemist that ever Germaned a chemist.

Haber's work helped create the gases that wiped out millions during World War I. It also helped fertilize vastly more land, more quickly, than ever before, feeding untold numbers--which is why they called him "the man that pulled bread from the air."

These terrifying godlike powers seem fairly suitable for a man who was literally calling the Egyptian king of gods back into existence across time and space, and now he lives under your sink. You're welcome.