The Independence of the Junior Scientist's Mind: At What Price?

Abstract

When I was facing the daunting task of recounting my approximately 70 years of scientific career and some aspects of my personal life, I decided to write this autobiographical piece in a "different" way. After a section on the almost bare facts of my life (Section 1), I include several other parts, loosely connected in time, in each of which I make an almost self-contained point, decreasing in this way the need for consistency and coherence in the whole article. I discuss, for example, the importance of original ideas, the independence of junior colleagues, and my work with molecular beams and in nanomedicine. I end by acknowledging those I was lucky enough to learn from in my intellectual development as a research scientist and with a couple of recommendations that may be useful to my junior and not-so-junior colleagues.

Dynamical signatures of molecular symmetries in nonequilibrium quantum transport

“…A thorough knowledge of symmetries could lead to a better understanding of molecular junctions that have become promising candidates to build transport devices 13 14 . They have been in the limelight due to the sizable quantum effects that have led to exciting effects in electronic 15 16 17 , heat 18 19 20 21 , and excitonic 22 23 transport. Despite the plethora of studies, transport signatures that arise solely due to the inherent molecular symmetry have not been put forward.…”