The Abel Prize 2009 will be announced tomorrow, March 26th, and you will be able to view the ceremony live in the Abel prize webcast. The ceremony announcing the winner of one of the most prestigious pirzes of mathematics will begin at 11am UK time (12 noon Norwegian time), and soon after Plus will give you more details.

You can find out more about previous winners of the Abel Prize on Plus.

A date for your TV diary: next Tuesday, the 31st of March 2009, at 9pm, BBC2 will screen the Horizon programme Alan and Marcus go forth and multiply, in which actor and comedian Alan Davies explores his fear of maths with mathematician and author Marcus du Sautoy. Together they will visit the fourth dimension, cross the universe and explore infinity, and along the way Alan does battle with some of the toughest maths questions of our age. Let's hope he's done some swotting with Plus first!

This is your final reminder of the Plus new writers award, our writing competition which gives you the chance to become a Plus author, and win an iPod and signed books by some of the best popular science writers around. The deadline is March 31, so get writing now — we're looking forward to reading your entries!

If you enjoy the Plus podcasts, then you might also like a maths podcast published by Peter Rowlett, the University Liaison Officer of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. On his travels he records short interviews with interesting mathematicians talking about their career and work. There are also episodes on the history of mathematics and on mathematical news, and the webpage also contains a blog.

This is the 50th issue of Plus and to celebrate, we've made it especially big. We explore the incredibly life-like images generated by computers and fragile medieval frescoes, find chaos in fluid flows and prime numbers in a sieve, meet the "English Galileo" and a man who's into geeky pop, and learn about the dangers of bacon sandwiches. Plus the usual regular features including book reviews, puzzle and podcasts.

Read issue 50 of Plus...

The mathematical work of Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll

Writing, mathematics, photography — Charles Dodgson had many talents, and if he hadn't become famous for his Alice books, he would almost certainly have become famous for something else. In this podcast we talk to Robin Wilson, Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University and a prolific author himself, about Dodgson's mathematical work, which included an influential theory of elections and a play on Euclid's Elements. Robin Wilson is the author of the book Lewis Carroll in numberland, which has been reviewed in Plus.

Listen to the podcast!

Labels: podcast