1) How did you choose your profession?
Drift. Carried along largely rudderless on the current of academic life: undergraduate, graduate, postdoc, lecturer. Chemistry appealed because it did not require advanced maths and avoided the complications of biology. Physical chemistry in particular appealed because it has roots in the comprehension provided by physics and emphasised the theoretical.

2) How do you convey passion for a given subject?
By showing that it adds depth to delight.

3) What are the key elements of a good education system?
To generate a love of learning, to develop the ability to learn, to show how learning may be applied, and to appreciate the interconnectedness of understanding and culture.

4) How do you deliver criticism to improve someone’s work?
This is one role of the Oxford tutorial system, where a tutor not only presses for the pupil to develop deep understanding but also to articulate that understanding with precision and clarity, in some cases by setting an example.

5) How would you describe the ideal relationship between student and teacher/mentor?
Mutual respect.

6) How do you keep the love for learning alive throughout one’s life?
By ceaselessly reliving the pleasure of discovery; by telling oneself that without a daily injection of knowledge, particularly of comprehension, the brain rots, soon to be followed by the body.

7) If you had to deliver a series of lectures to some aliens (perfectly capable of learning, but with no knowledge of our world), what topic would you choose?
The Boltzmann distribution. Its origin lies in randomness, its application ranges from the stability of matter to matter’s ability to undergo transformation. It is essentially the underlying unifying concept of chemistry and a lot of physics.