Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, Peter Atkins is one of the world's foremost physical chemists, and the author of Galileo's Finger.

Here, we spoke to Atkins about the problems of religion, the future of the Human Brain Project and why the power of the scientific method has no limits.

It is clear that science is a passion for you. Was there perhaps a theory or an idea that had a particularly profound impact?

No [laughs]. I think science is such a conglomeration of ideas that you immediately become aware of its explanatory power, and through that, the deepening of enjoyment of understanding why the world is the way it is and how it functions. So, it’s appreciating the global strength of the explanations that it gives.

Your work has covered a diverse range of ideas and fields in science. Was this a decision that you made consciously?