“I wonder why. I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder!”
Richard P. Feynman
My name is Samsonov Maksim, I’m a researcher at the University of Pardubice. My main hobby and at the same time work is research in the field of chemistry.
Childhood and school
My first invention was a “sugar-sand filter,” made from two yellow containers from Kinder Surprise with an empty marker pen positioned between them. As you can guess from the description, this device was able to separate a mixture of sugar sand and, for example, peas. But what did you expect from a five-year-old child?
The real game-changer in my scientific career was a Lego constructor I received as a birthday present. That became a new field for the realization of my ideas. Chemistry is like a game for adults who still enjoy playing with construction sets, except the parts are a little smaller.
After beginning the school chemistry course, I had to face harsh reality. It seemed that now we would finally be shown interesting and colourful experiments, but most of the laboratory work had to be postponed because of the lack of necessary reagents at school. I hadn’t planned to put up with this state of affairs while exploring this world, so sometime later, I opened my laboratory in the attic. I managed to get some chemical equipment from friends and buy some things at the local pharmacy. And then, I got my hands on the book by Grosse E., Weissmantel C. “Chemie selbst erlebt. Das kannst auch du das chemie-experimentierbuch,” and it began…
University
In 2006 I became a student of the Chemistry Department at Lobachevsky State University. I made as much effort to study as “my inner minimum” required. In other words, very mediocre, which did not prevent me from getting a master’s degree with excellent grades.
By the middle of my third year, my organic chemistry professor recommended that I try my hand in a group focused on X-ray structural analysis. This led me to the G.A. Razuvaev Institute of Organometallic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s theses. Through my research, I gradually gained a better understanding of modern chemistry. A key discovery for me was realizing that theoretical calculations could model molecules and predict their properties before they were synthesized.
As I neared the end of my Master’s program, I had to decide what to do next. Since I was not bored with studying (with such an approach), and inertia is known to be strong, I found nothing better than to enrol in graduate school and not think about this issue for several more years.
Postgraduate studies
In graduate school, I was accepted as a junior researcher, and this imposed some obligations to solve crystal structures for all laboratories in the institute. In the remaining time, it was possible to do my research. At some point, I realized that it would be nice to add experimental chemistry to my work. So, having received a grant for young researchers, I bought a fume hood, acquired a minimal set of reagents and solvents, and began to synthesize my compounds. History repeated itself, but now the scale was much larger than just an attic. Five years later, the thesis was ready, and the question “What next?” needed to be solved as soon as possible.
Postdoc and further research work
It is always difficult to make decisions and take personal responsibility for them, especially those that will determine your life for many years to come. On the one hand, I did not want to leave the baggage of accumulated knowledge and continue scientific work, on the other hand, commercial offers looked much more perspective. It is hard to tell the emotional tension and uncertainty that was going on in my head at that time. At some point, I felt that subconsciously I made a choice, but not knowing how exactly to realize it, continued to go through all possible options.
Eventually, after months of searching, I came across a postdoc position at the University of Pardubice. In less than a week, I managed to negotiate the details, and I started to collect the necessary documents. Thus began a new chapter of my life – moving to the Czech Republic for a year and a half as a postdoc. It was probably the most difficult decision I made at the time, but I have never regretted it so far.
I continued my scientific work at the University of Pardubice, combining experimental and theoretical chemistry. After a year and a half, I was offered a job here and I accepted.
My modest contribution to world science can be seen here: