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Showing posts from March, 2025

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...

Cryptocurrencies Potential to Disrupt Traditional Banking

  Josiah Dunn May 22nd 2009. A programmer purchases two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin. This is the first commercial use of Bitcoins and marks the beginning of a financial revolution. Now those 10,000 Bitcoins are worth billions, a testament to the incredible potential of cryptocurrencies. May 22nd 2029. Twenty years on, in a bustling street market, sellers and buyers from all over the world trade goods without a central currency and use their digital wallets to transfer digital value instantly and securely. As impossible as this sounds, it is becoming a reality as cryptocurrencies challenge traditional banking by removing intermediaries and reducing costs. Decentralisation is a core part of cryptocurrencies, differentiating them from traditional financial systems that rely on central authorities like banks and governments. By operating on blockchain networks, cryptocurrencies eliminate intermediaries, allowing individuals to conduct transactions directly with one another. This peer-to-...

The potential of cryptocurrencies to revolutionise traditional banking and financial systems

Rishabh Sidana Year 12 In an ever-evolving modern economy, cryptocurrencies appear to have been the epicentre of this transition to the digital realm since the conception of Bitcoin in 2009. Their existence, however, has been one subjected to swathes of fluctuations over the years, from Bitcoin’s meteoric rise of 416% in 2020 ( Binance, 2024 ), to widespread criticism of their handling during the FTX collapse. On one side the sceptical, among whom are Nobel Laureate Robert Merton ( PBS, 2018 ), and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon ( CNBC, 2024 ); they emphasise the illegitimacy of cryptocurrencies, with Merton discussing how their decentralised nature disqualifies them from being legal tender, one of the fundamental criteria of any currency. On the other are the advocates, among whom is former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who argues that Bitcoin’s decentralisation enables it to overcome the barrier of borders, hence permitting for globalised liquidity. This essay aims to explore the intr...

Given limited resources, should the scientific community focus on broadening our horizons or improving standard of living? - Shubber Fatlawi

Given limited resources, should the scientific community focus on broadening our horizons or improving standard of living? Should efforts be focused on broadening our horizons or ameliorating standard of living? The scientific community stands at a crossroads between this mind wrenching decision. On one hand, limited resources can be directed to expanding the frontiers of knowledge through space exploration, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, offering the promise of innovation and long term survival. On the other hand by tackling poverty, enhancing healthcare and mitigating climate change, tangible and immediate benefits can be achieved for billions of people. Billions of lives. Billions of futures. Neither approach is wrong but constrained budgets and competing priorities necessitate different choices. This essay will examine the debate over where scientific efforts should be focused, weighing the merits and challenges of both broadening our horizons and improving the s...