The best mobile phone had the best mathematician. They know how to fit a huge amount of data into a small amount of space. How to do things efficiently, how to do them cleverly.

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

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

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

The stage is like a laboratory where you can run theatrical experiments, imposing interesting conditions on the cast or story and seeing how they pan out. Each new play is like creating a tiny virtual universe enclosed by the confines of the stage.

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.

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