Hi all,

I think a few of you may be interested in this. Every year at Plus we hold our maths writing competition, the “Plus new writers” award. We want to find people who can bring mathematics to life.

The competition is open to new writers of any age and from any background who can explain a mathematical topic or application they think the world needs to know about. The winning entries will be read by an international audience of over two hundred thousand in the June 2008 issue of Plus, and the winners will receive an iPod and signed copies of popular maths books by some of the best science writers today. The closing date is March 31st 2008.

Apart from the prizes, you’ll get published and have great exposure, so its an opportunity for new writers or those wanting to get into science communication or journalism not to be missed. Stephen Hawking and Marcus du Sautoy are two of the big-name authors who have written for Plus.

The competition is kindly supported by the Maths, Stats and Operational Research Network, a Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy, and the London Mathematical Society. The competition will be judged by three prominent mathematicians and science writers.

There are three categories: secondary school and sixth form students, university students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) and the general
public.

The competition website is plus.maths.org/competition/

We’ve also set up the mathematics forum on the nature network, so you can visit that forum for any extra info on the comp or on maths in general – or, of course, you can visit Plus

Cheers,
Marc