About Plus

What we do

Plus is an internet magazine which aims to introduce readers to the beauty and the practical applications of mathematics. A lot of people don't have a very clear idea what "real" maths consists of, and often they don't realise how many things they take for granted only work because of a generous helping of it. Apparently, some people even have the idea that it's boring! Weird. Anyway, we hope that even if you're such a person now, you won't be after looking through one or two issues of Plus, and that you'll come back and read future issues as they come out.

Plus provides feature articles, which describe applications of maths to real-world problems, games, and puzzles; reviews of popular maths books and events; a news section, showing how recent news stories were often based on some underlying piece of maths that never made it to the newspapers; a puzzle for you to sharpen your wits against; a lucky dip of mathematical curiosities; and opinions on various maths-related topics and news stories. We have a regular interview with someone in a maths-related career, showing the wide range of uses maths gets put to in the real world. And all past issues remain available online, which besides making for good browsing is, we hope, a useful resource for maths school students and teachers.

Terms of use

Plus is free to use for educational and non-commercial purposes. Read our full terms of use here.

Who we are

Plus is co-edited by Marianne Freiberger and Rachel Thomas. Our graphic designer is freelancer Charles Trevelyan and our computer officer is Owen Smith. Ex-editor Helen Joyce and ex-assistant editors Marc West, Kona Andrews and Mark Wainwright still write the occasional article. The MMP's Senior Computer Officer Mike Pearson was graphic artist on Plus until issue 18, and still contributes animations and interactive features for some of our articles. Some of our articles are written in-house; other are written by wonderful, generous, kind people (thank you!). If you would like to become a wonderful, generous, kind person, or if you just have an idea for an article you could write, please contact us at <plus@maths.cam.ac.uk>.

A short history

Plus started life under the name of PASS Maths (Public Awareness and Schools Support for Maths) in 1997, when it was a project of the Interactive Courseware Research and Development Group, based jointly at the Universities of Cambridge and Keele.

Plus is now part of the Millennium Mathematics Project, a long term national initiative based in Cambridge and active across the UK and internationally. The MMP aims to help people of all ages and abilities share in the excitement of mathematics and understand the enormous range and importance of its applications to science and commerce. It works to change people's attitudes to maths, to act as a national focus for renewing and improving appreciation of the dynamic importance of maths and its applications, and to demonstrate the vital contribution of maths to shaping the everyday world.

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