Welcome to the pilot issue of the PASS Maths online magazine. Our aim is to stimulate public interest in mathematics and in particular to show how relevant it is in our lives. The magazine will prove useful to anyone thinking about doing mathematics at A-level or University. It will be a valuable resource for mathematics teachers who will also have their own 'Staff Room' section in future issues. We plan to publish one issue each term, in January, May and September. Each issue will contain mathematical news items and feature articles as well as brain teasers and your letters. We are building up a resource centre containing items of general interest, for example our HE Course List allows you to find out about Mathematics courses throughout the UK.

Your comments on this and future issues will be most welcome. These will help us in shaping the content and materials offered in the future.

The materials in the PASS Maths online magazine have been written bearing in mind that many people using them may only have a slow link, which in practical terms means the pages may take a long time to appear. To cut this time to a minimum, we have made graphics files as small as possible.