Science and scientific thinking play an ever-increasing role in our everyday lives.  Governments need to make decisions, which should often be based on scientific evidence and arguments. In general, however, positive and flowing communication between these two groups is unusual. To give some understanding of why this is so, Herbert E Huppert, Professor of Theoretical Geophysics,…

Professor Herbert Huppert is an internationally recognised geophysicist. In 2007, he was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London and, in May 2011, gave the Bakerian Prize Lecture of The Royal Society. Professor Huppert is Director at Cambridge University’s Institute Theoretical Geophysics and widely published on the fluid-mechanical principles in applications to…