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!
