We are proud to present the winners of the Plus New Writers Award 2009. The winners were chosen by our three judges: David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, Geoffrey Carr, Science Editor of The Economist, and Julian Havil, mathematics author and retired mathematics teacher.

Secondary school category
Winner Beauty in mathematics Surein Aziz explores one of the most beautiful equations in mathematics	Runner-up The expression that (nearly) explained the Universe Sophie Butchart finds mysterious patterns in the solar system

University category
Winner How maths killed Lehman Brothers Horatio Boedihardjo explains the credit crunch	Runner-up Thinking outside the box Sonia Buckley travels through higher dimensions

General public category
Winner The Carol syndrome José-Manuel Rey unveils the curse of attractiveness	Runner-up Knitting by numbers Lucinda Mathews visualises tricky surfaces

Plus would like to thank the Maths, Stats and Operational Research Network and the journal Nature for their kind support of this competition.