Professor Ed Copeland is a man who just loves solving equations. Ed's a theoretical physicist at the

University of Nottingham, a man I've been making videos with for well over a decade. Now his bread

and butter is cosmology, string theory, the early universe, all that good stuff. But in his heart

of hearts, Ed loves numbers,

mathematics, neatly jotting equations on pieces of paper. You've seen him in some number file videos

doing just that. Today he's going to tell us about his journey from schoolboy with dreams of playing

cricket for England and how doing high school mathematics helped him through a health scare later in life.

But first, we talked about Ed's childhood

in the Yorkshire town of Huddersfield.

What's Huddersfield famous for?

The Industrial Revolution.

That was one of the starting places for the Industrial Revolution. Let's

see, in terms of, if you're a rugby fan, rugby league, not rugby union, rugby league began in Huddersfield

at the George Hotel. I did not know that. Yes, absolutely. Is that where the rules were drawn

up? That's where the rules were drawn up, yep, at the George Hotel. And then, of course, I suppose then you've got

people like Harold Wilson, who was the Prime Minister, it was born in Huddersfield, James Mason,

famous actor was born in Huddersfield. I used to run, going to school, used to run through his

mum's garden to get to school, did a shortcut. Okay. Yeah. What were you like as a little boy?

What was your childhood like?

Oh, very happy.

Yeah.

I would just be playing out with friends out.

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