News from the world of maths

This special double issue of Plus is cause for celebration: both of the endeavours of physics to understand our Universe, and of the writers of tomorrow who may help explain it. We explore the frontiers of modern physics: searching for alien life in space and exotic particles in the LHC, looking through the Hubble Space Telescope, imagining a holographic Universe, and wrestling with one of the biggest problems in modern physics. And the winners of the Plus new writers award 2009 explore the most beautiful equation of them all, explain the credit crunch, and unveil the curse of good looks. We raise a toast to mathematics and physics — to all the explorers of the new frontiers and the new writers who can take us there!

Read issue 51 of Plus!