Between his proyects Professor Alberto Robledo will participate in the UNAM's new Center of Complexity Sciences. Photo: Héctor García

Mexico City (8 January 2009) at his eyes physics is everywhere. And flows easily from the classical issues to explain phenomena that appear distant, as the surface of a molecular fluid, the behavior of Finances or the social networks complexity that bring humans together.

Agile to freely move between the three tracks that he chose to study simultaneously Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Physics at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Alberto Robledo (Mexico City, 1945) describes himself as a statistical physics who defined his vocation when he was studying his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland.

"I chose statistical physics, an area Founded in the 19th century and remains unbeaten, as its fundamentals remain strong. It is always a field that has been successful and I like it because 'it leaves the huacal' (mexican expression) to explain phenomena that occur in the Stock exchange, the transitions that make an ordinary metal a superconductor and because it provides answers to complex systems such as ecologicals", he explains in the interview.

Founder of the Department of Chemical Physics at the Institute of Physics, UNAM, Robledo is pleased to be recognized with the National Prize of Sciences and Arts 2008 in the category of Physics and Mathematics Sciences. An award that he knows well, because he has been jury on several occasions.

"This time I'm on the other side. I am honored and happy. It is the highest scientific distinction in the country", he summarizes.

Researcher for over 30 years at UNAM, first at the Faculty of Chemistry and since 1986 at the Institute of Physics, Robledo describes himself as an individualistic being.

"I forged myself. I did not trained alongside a renowned researcher and I have always worked independently. It was a difficult choice in a competitive guild as the scientist one, but at the UNAM, my only job in more than 30 years, I have always had spaces for a free activity that has enabled me to generate original knowledge, he reveals.

Robledo feels comfortable in statistical physics, which he compares with a bridge where the route begins with data analysis of objects within a large group of them, the same as a molecule, cell, or a person, to then cross it and offer answers on collective phenomena.

Although their everyday tools are the equations that crammed the huge blackboard in his cubicle, the numerical solutions that grow with the ability to compute and many of its results are from probabilistic nature, before his technical instruments, this scientist puts a horizontal view of the knowledge that freely crosses the boundaries of physics and chemistry, in topics such as phase changes between a solid crystal and its conversion to a simple fluid, in the complex fluids and other transitions in condensed matter.

His interest in science among several themes evoke his love of swimming and his time as a student in the swim team at UNAM. Since then he remains with his "free style" and a rebellious personality who will soon find its context.

Professor Alberto Robledo

"I belong to the generation of 1968. I was an undergraduate student of three careers when the student movement stop all classes", he recalls. Although not an activist, he acknowledged in that event a generational trace.

"Somehow we were all involved," he remembers.

While UNAM recovered itself after the shock of Tlaltelolco toward 1969, Robledo continued his academic course in Scotland, where he attended his doctorate. Back in Mexico as a researcher , he keeps since then his air of freedom and rebellion.

Over three decades later, Robledo is still swimming between waters that cross several sciences, advocating the creative individuality and always looking towards the border of knowledge. In this route, its research topics also include nonlinear physics, studies of chaos and the so-called complex systems.

"In Mexico, scientific community is solid, but very small. We're still in the suburbs and the daily struggle is with scientists around the world, contributing with original knowledge in this field", reveals the professor of the Faculty of Science and Chemistry and the only Latin American member-elect of the Commission on Physical Statistics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.