In science, important ideas act like seeds: they give birth to new domains, that were not apparent in the original work where the ideas showed up. Papers by Axel Becke have this potency. Two examples are given:

• the electron localization function (ELF), and

• the justification of hybrid methods using the adiabatic connection in density functional theory (DFT).

The first one was adopted by people like Reinhard Nesper and Yuri Grin leading to new path in experimental chemistry. The second one could be used in something seemingly distant from DFT: the correction of basis set errors.