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Showing posts from September, 2020

A New Leaf for the Looking Glass 2026/27

Dear all, Upon inheriting the Looking Glass from our predecessors, we identified a number of key issues. Firstly, there were simply not enough articles being published, due both to a lack of submissions from the school community and limited responsiveness from the previous Academic Team. Secondly, the Looking Glass had not been advertised or explained effectively enough to the wider school community. As a result, we plan to implement a more consistent and engaging stream of articles on the Looking Glass. As part of this initiative, we are looking to recruit a select group of keen writers from across the lower school who would be willing to produce one high-quality piece of writing, discussion, or media each month for publication on the Looking Glass. We believe this will be hugely beneficial both to the school community, which will gain access to a wider range of opinions and viewpoints, and to prospective writers, who will be able to reference their experience contributing to the Look...

The Birth of Modern Intensive Care

PRAVEEN KATHIRVASAN Intensive care units (ICU) have been critical for treating those severely ill with COVID-19. This branch of medicine deals with the process of temporarily supporting and replacing the function of multiple organ systems during serious illness and trauma. The first intensive care unit in Europe was set up by Bjørn Ibsen, an anaesthetist whose experimental form of positive pressure ventilation was pivotal in the intervention of the 1952 poliomyelitis epidemic in Copenhagen. Today, intensive care is considered a stand-alone speciality with the establishment of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine in 2010.

Formula 1 influence on road car design

TIM HIRE The speed-fuelled world of Formula 1 may seem extreme to the likes of you and I, who only use cars for transportation. In a world where 300 km/h (186 mph) can be reached in just 8.4 seconds using an estimated 1.4 horsepower per kilo, it could be prudent to assume that such eye-watering acceleration figures have a place solely on a race track. However, many technologies found in road cars today have previously seen development and use in the world of Formula 1. While there have been many technologies that have been transferred to road cars, I will take a closer look at the influence of F1 on car safety, alternative energy technology developments, and improving engine efficiency.

Purity of Heart

NOAH BUCKLE ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ This question in this form, for which we must thank Leibniz 1 , is characterised by Heidegger as “the basic question of metaphysics,” 2 and not arbitrarily. In its expression is contained not merely its truth – that there is something – but, in being so expressed, it is made my truth; it is so because I will it to be. By this, we do not mean to suggest that it is through the self that this something is constituted, and to thereby collapse into solipsism – a position refuted by any child who sees that the ‘I’ which says, “I found you!” in a game of hide-and-seek is just as correct as the ‘I’ which says, “I’ve been found!”. Rather, it is precisely because we will it that the something is not ours to begin with, for in this we say simply that we are, in a literal sense, not the be-all and end-all. Or, put another way: in willing that there is something, I necessarily comport myself towards it in such-and-such a way as to ...

Ilse Crawford ‘British Design Icon’

ARJUN GILL This article details the life and influence of Ilse Crawford, an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) British interior, furniture designer, creative director and author. I first came across Ilse when she was profiled on the 2017 Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design, this was particularly interesting for me as I seek to study an interior design course at university. She was born in 1962 London and attended Bedford College, this was at a time when UK design was traditional and unadventurous. The aim of me writing this article is to better inform me about the way Ilse worked and why her impact was significant.