The Looking Glass

Akshay Khanolkar (12C) At the writing of this article the James Webb Space Telescope has been in space for over 1 year and 5 months, in that time it has taken some truly spectacular photos bringing out never before seen detail in nebulae and looking for bio-signatures indicative of alien life, on worlds trillions of kilometres away. As stunning as the images the JWST takes, the entire operation is estimated to have an astronomical cost of over $10 Billion. Is there any way for you and me to take an image even remotely resembling what is produced from the JWST? It is important to note that unlike the Hubble space telescope, every image you have seen from the JWST is a false colour image, this is because the JWST captures light in the infrared part of the spectrum which is invisible to us. To create a colour image the scientists identify which elements are present in parts of the image and assign them a colour, so our image may not resemble the JWST’s at all Both our and the JWST’s large...

Robin Elfsberg (12R) This essay received top of the 'Commended' category in the 2022 Witold Pilecki History Essay Prize, out of more than 150 entries from across the country. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 retains a certain sort of infamy in histories of Cold War Europe- indeed, in the history of the 20th Century. A failed attempt to throw off the shackles imposed by the Soviet Union during their ‘Great Patriotic War’, it was a clear demonstration to the world of the seemingly unchanging face of authoritarian communism and the lengths that the new dictator of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, would go in order to keep and consolidate his power. Much talk has been around the fact that none of the Western powers had actively intervened when they had done so a year before NATO’s foundation in the Berlin Airlift, where the commitment had been to be a defence against the USSR and the communist satellite states that formed the Eastern Bloc. The general assertion was that there had been an...

Kabir Kaul FRSA is an Old Fullerian, studying at WBGS between 2016-2023. Between 2022-2023 he worked with the Greater London Authority, the devolved administration of London led by the Mayor of London. Since 2020 he has been Director of Environment & Conservation at Middlesex Heritage, a non-political organisation which promotes the history and heritage of the historic county of Middlesex.  Website: kabirkaul.com  Twitter: @Kaulofthewilduk  The flag of Middlesex: a red field with a Saxon crown above three swords, ‘seaxes’. Photo: Wikipedia.  Introduction   Since time immemorial, counties have given a sense of identity to villages, towns and cities across England, instilling a great sense of local pride. The various functions of counties impact us on a daily basis. Whether it be the council we pay our taxes to, the addresses we write on envelopes, the flags flying from council offices or the food we eat, one is never far from the social, cultural, geographica...