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.

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.

Its my belief that you can take everyone down a logical path if you take them slowly enough, and the trouble is that mathematical brains can get scrambled a little bit on the way. You get a bad teacher, it messes you up for the rest of the journey.

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.

When people ask me what my religion is, I say it's the Arsenal.

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