  Victor Emery made seminal contributions to the theory of one-dimensional
electronic systems and to its applications to organic metals. His inventions
became illuminated recently when the joint effect of the ferroelectricity and
the charge disproportionation has been discovered in (TMTTF)2X compounds and
beyond. Several of his contributions came to agenda at once: separate gaps in
spin/charge channels and the route to solitons, 4kF anomaly, dimerization gap,
role of ionic transitions. New phenomena unify an unusual variety of concepts:
ferroelectricity of good conductors, structural instability towards
Mott-Hubbard state, Wigner crystallization in a dense electronic system,
ordered 4kF density wave, richness of physics of solitons, interplay of
structural and electronic symmetries. The ferroelectric state gives rise to
several types of solitons carrying the electron charge, a noninteger charge,
spin or both the spin and the charge in special cases. They are clearly
observed via conductivity, electric and magnetic susceptibilities. Solitons are
challenging for optics where they already seem to determine the pseudogap in
absorption. Various features also appear, or are expected, from collective
electronic and coupled electron-phonon modes. The last topic, as well as some
aspects of physics of solitons, recalls also the contributions of M.J. Rice.
Moreover, the observation of Mott-Hubbard states refers to classical results of
A.A. Ovchinnikov.
