Molecules have for a long time been of central importance in chemistry as the basis on which all new products and materials have been designed, developed and interpreted. Since the discovery and characterization of active biomolecules, biology has also been transformed into a molecular science. With the new developments of molecular devices, single-molecule spectroscopy, time-resolved x-ray diffraction and the study of mass-selected clusters in molecular beams, materials science and electronics may move in the same direction.

The understanding of molecules and the dynamics of their...