Alan Alda – he's known to millions around the world as Hawkeye from the evergreen Korean War comedy-drama MASH. But did you also know he has a long-held interest in science?

He fronted the TV series, Scientific American Frontiers for 12 years and helped found the Centre for Communicating Science.

Now he's coming to Australia to collaborate with the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University.

In an interview with 7.30 he talked about his passion for science and why clear communication of it is so important.

What's the payoff for making scientists better communicators?

"Science is a beautiful, fascinating detective story. And we shouldn't be denied that story simply because it's done in a language we don't understand. We need it not dumbed down, but translated, made vivid, made clear. But it's good for the people in the sense that science is always the basis of a strong economy, it's good for science because science gets to get funded by policy makers who can understand what they're talking about. It's good for everyone. Better communication, more clarity never hurt any enterprise. And it's certainly good for us in regard to science."

Sharing the enthusiasm

Alan Alda (left) playing Hawkeye in the TV series, MASH.

"There are wonderful science journalists out there and for years I've relied on them for my understanding of science - and I continue to. I'm amazed at how they can read a paper and convey it to me, convey the essence of it to me. But one of the things that I think that science and the public will benefit from is the true enthusiasm, the excitement that scientists feel themselves. If they can express that to the people we'll catch that enthusiasm. It's contagious."

What do Einstein's love letters have to do with it?

"What we will be doing is combining art and science. I feel that art and science are long-lost lovers yearning to be reunited. And it's a wonderful way to bring the public through the door to science, to open up the door through art, which we all understand a lot better than the science very often. So, I'm very happy because a theatre piece I wrote on Einstein, based on the letters between Einstein and his wives, will get its regional premiere at the World Science Festival in Brisbane. Dear Albert, it's called. It's a reading of his letters that I've tried to construct carefully so that it follows an arc, a dramatic arc, and what you see is Einstein's obsession with understanding the universe in ways that it's never been understood before. At the same time that he's living through these romantic attachments to these two women. Actually - there were more than two women. Einstein was pretty frisky! I don't know if many people are aware of that! But he treated his wives gloriously in the beginning and not so well after that. And it's not - I certainly don't want to bring down Einstein in anyone's estimation - I'm just amazed at the brain and the person who he was. But he was a human being with human flaws and human attributes, human facets to his personality and his character. And I think it helps to bring people a picture of a person and then let them think about the unbelievably intelligent work that they conducted throughout their lives. I think, again, it opens the door to us as a scientist as a human being."

On planned cuts to the CSIRO