The point is with good maths skills you have just wonderful opportunities and if you don't have good maths skills, there are just so many things that you won't be able to do.

Mathematics is a place where you can do things which you can't do in the real world.

Primes are the atoms of the arithmetic - the hydrogen and oxygen of the world of numbers

Mathematics has beauty and romance. It's not a boring place to be, the mathematical world. It's an extraordinary place it's worth spending time there.

The power of mathematics is often to change one thing into another, to change geometry into language.

But actually a code is a language for translating one thing into another. And mathematics is the language of science. My big thesis is that although the world looks messy and chaotic, if you translate it into the world of numbers and shapes, patterns emerge and you start to understand why things are the way they are.

I think science is a foreign land for many people, so I think of my role as an ambassador's job.

But actually a code is a language for translating one thing into another. And mathematics is the language of science. My big thesis is that although the world looks messy and chaotic, if you translate it into the world of numbers and shapes, patterns emerge and you start to understand why things are the way they are.

Theory is needed to tell you where to look.

I'm obviously attuned to pick up mathematics whenever I can see it. But in Mozart there is a lot of conscious use of mathematical symbolism and numbers in order to try and give messages.

If you can make yourself symmetrical, you're sending out a sign that you've got good genes, you've got a good upbringing and therefore you'll make a good mate.

You know, I'm not terribly fast at my times tables, because that's not what I think mathematics is about.

I think my primary audience is in some sense an adult audience, because I think that will then have a knock-on effect for children.