The Num8er My5teries

Join Professor Marcus du Sautoy in an exploration of the mysterious primes, the atoms of mathematics. In his first Christmas Lecture from 2006, Marcus reveals where our numbers come from and how you could win $1 million by solving their secret.

Follow Professor Marcus du Sautoy as he takes a tour through the mathematical and cultural world of shapes. In his second Christmas Lecture we find out why bubbles are always round, why eggs are super strong, exactly how long the coastline of Britain is and even what shape the universe might be.

Logic is an important part of playing games. So it is perhaps not surprising that mathematics can help you plan the winning strategy. In his third Christmas Lecture, Marcus du Sautoy explores why certain games are won and lost on the first move and how lateral thinking can unlock the most fiendish brainteasers.

In his penultimate Christmas Lecture, Professor Marcus du Sautoy investigates the clever ways people have hidden messages and how mathematicians turned from code breakers to code makers. Find out how the mathematics of codes lets us do evrything from photgraphing the surface of Mars to shopping securely on the internet.

In his final Christmas Lecture, Professor Marcus du Sautoy reveals why there is still a long way to go until mathematics can be used as the ultimate fortune teller. Through a range of demonstrations, he shows why, although maths can predict the path of a football, some of Nature's equations are harder to solve and we we might need chaos to bring order!