On family life
Q: What was it like having Jacob Bronowski as a father?
A: Well I was the oldest of four daughters, and I sometimes feel like I was the 'son substitute' in that we identified with each other. He saw me as his intellectual heir, I think, and we had an idyllic relationship.

On art v science
Q: Bronowski is famous for his work as both a poet and a scientist but did he favour one over the other?
A: He was passionately devoted to reconciling the two spheres, but he was always very proud of his own work in mathematics. He undertook a statistical study of fossils for The Ascent of Man, for example, and he was particularly pleased with that.

On television
Q: Bronowski was unusual among academics of his day in that he achieved his fame through TV. What did he think of it as a medium?
A: My father was an intellectual democrat. He saw TV as an excellent way for everyone to acquire knowledge. But many of his peers were very snooty about TV, and looked down on him for his broadcasting work. Luckily David Attenborough shared my father's view of TV as a great force for progress, and that led to The Ascent of Man being made.

On his influence
Q: You've become an esteemed scholar in your own right, but how did your father influence your career?
A: He actually suggested that I study science at university and leave the arts for later, to pick up in my own time. This isn't because he valued science and mathematics above history and literature; it was more that he believed science was simply more difficult and needed to be learnt in a more formal way. Actually I disagree with him there: I don't regard one as more difficult than the other.

On outside interests
Q: What did your father enjoy in his spare time? Any unlikely interests?
A: Well he was a great lover of games, addicted to crosswords and boardgames. And unusually enough he developed a great love of American football in his later years. I think it was the complex rules that appealed to him; he often tried explaining American football to me but I never got it!