Half a century of molecular bioenergetics.

Molecular bioenergetics deals with the construction, function and regulation of the powerhouses of life. The present overview sketches scenes and actors, farsighted goals and daring hypotheses, meticulous tool-making, painstaking benchwork, lucky discovery, serious scepticism, emphatic believing and strong characters with weak and others with hard arguments, told from a personal, admittedly limited, perspective. Bioenergetics will blossom further with the search focused on both where there is bright light for ever-finer detail and the obvious dark spots for surprise and discovery.