The Looking Glass

[This fantastic essay was the winner in the KS4 category of the WBGS History Essay Prize 2021-22, where the task was to argue whether or not "History is shaped just as much by chance as it is by long term social and economic trends"] ESA BRISTER History has been shaped by many things, including by events and by decisions which are almost infinitely variable in their detail. This could be succinctly summarized as being shaped by “chance,” by “trends,” or by a combination of the two.  Chance may be defined as the possibility of something happening. It is usually understood to be unexpected or at least unlikely. A trend may be defined as a general direction in which something is developing or changing, and will therefore more likely be predictable. However, for the purposes of this essay, which primarily addresses socio-economic trends, I will define these socio-economic trends as the general direction which economies and societies take and in which they tend to act. An example ...

This essay won the school's annual Holocaust Memorial Day Essay Competition. THEO ADAM ‘One day’. A single day. During those twenty-four hours, so much can happen - both in a literal and a mental sense. Although the practice of reflection upon history often fixates on an extensive period of time, allowing only a glimpse at individual dates and events, it is certainly poignant to zoom in to the finer details and consider the emotions experienced within such a brief piece of the bigger picture. A day where shocking, new laws are introduced that strip you of your German citizenship: your rich heritage. A day where you are required to adopt a new middle name to identify yourself solely as a member of a religion. A day like all others in your recent memory, detained in the largest camp complex of the Nazi Germany regime. This was the reality for so many - the many that fall short of being remembered for anything other than a statistic that is stated on ‘one day’ each year. On the 15th o...

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, WBGS Looking Glass is publishing a duo of essays from the school's HMD competition this year, on the theme of 'One Day'. You can find the winner Theo Adam's essay here . CALEB HUANG “One day...”  A throw-away phrase that often marks the beginning of stories - everything begins on a day, after all. Historians can point out key events that happened on key dates; analyse them, attempt to explain them, explore all the things that happened on a single day - but no event happens in isolation. Every single day adds threads to the tapestry of historical events. Therefore, one single day is simply not enough to tell a story. January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day - a day for remembrance, to pause and to think. This year’s theme is One Day : a call to reflect on how the persecuted lived day-by-day and their sheer necessity for survival; a reminder and a warning that genocide does not start overnight without dangerous signs, signs which we as bysta...

This is the second instalment in Haroun's essay series on the impact of technology on modern life; you can find the introductory essay here:  https://wbgslookingglass.blogspot.com/2022/01/on-modern-day-pandoras-box-0.html HAROUN DUGSIE Preparing the Journey To begin our exploration, we must first define what politics means for our purposes. A common, (if not inaccurate), definition of politics is “studying and applying various methods and tactics used to obtain, secure, and utilise power; granting one dominion and control over others to achieve one’s own desires and whims”. Granted, this definition is, in and of itself, not necessarily a bad definition of politics, given the numerous examples throughout history that it reflects. But most of us, whether we are inherently aware of it or not, visualise and perceive politics as a Machiavellian game of life, full of immoral, devious, and manipulative people using and abusing means and methods maliciously to rob and hoard as much po...

What it Means to be Human in a Technological World  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic [Arthur C. Clarke]  HAROUN DUGSIE Consider a criterion originally proposed by, and often attributed to, esteemed author Arthur C Clarke: the belief that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. This belief is one that governs a world where such magic frequently occurs, and occurs with an alarmingly increasing prevalence. We are living in a world governed by this very belief.   We live in a world where Clarke’s idea of magic is enchanted all around us. And woven into this magical membrane are strings, threads, and seams spooled from the fibres of ancient and modern intellectual ideas, forming a technological tapestry granting, concocting, and conjuring unimaginable and seemingly magical spells and enchantments: the power and dominion of the seas and the skies, telecommunication, long-distance transportation, and the tw...

ABDULLAH ABDULLAH The Maclaurin series represent a fascinating type of series in mathematics, since they approximate complicated functions as a polynomial series. It is interesting and somewhat uncanny that a simple series of polynomial terms can exactly define a different function, albeit in a strict domain for the input of the function. The general equation for series of this type is shown below:                \(\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{f^{(n)}(a)}{n!}(x-a)^n \) where: \(n!\) is the factorial of n \(a\) is a chosen real or complex number \(f^{(n)}(a)\) is the nth derivative of the function \(f(x)\) evaluated at \(x = a\) What is shown above is a generalised version (Taylor series), since it includes a constant a, but for Maclaurin series, the constant a is zero.  Of course, simply showing the formula outright doesn’t help much in understanding what Maclaurin series are all about, so here are a few step by step examples that will clarif...