issue 2 navigation beacon

The Academic Scholars’ Journal of

South Hampstead High SchoolI SSUE 2 Navigation

Natasha Arakcheeva / Sonya Belkin / Duha Bilal / Natasha Bogod Cassandra Choi / Natasha Gibson-Hall / Lucia Henwood

Emily Man / Eleanor Roberts / Amelie Todd

B E A C O N

3The Academic Scholars’ Journal of South Hampstead High SchoolB E ACO N I SSUE 02 Navigation2

We have both loved being a part of curating this second edition of the Beacon, South Hampstead’s Academic Scholars’ Journal. Reading and editing these essays has been a true pleasure and highlights the wide-ranging talents of our scholars. What impressed us in particular was the diversity of topics, testament to the creativity and intellectual curiosity that is an integral part of scholarship at South Hampstead. The uniting theme of ‘navigation’ has inspired enlightening areas of study, from space travel to rational decision-making, via animal migration patterns and linguistics – together, they provide an illuminating read that we hope you will enjoy.

N A V I G A T I O NWelcome to our second edition of the Beacon, on the theme of navigation. It has been fascinating to watch each of our Year 11 and Lower Sixth Scholars steer their own path on a journey of academic exploration and discovery.

Scholarship continues to be central to life here at South Hampstead. At our annual Scholars’ Dinner, we celebrate the best work of our Academic Scholars. For the first time this year we are also hosting a symposium and dinner for our Lower School Academic Scholars, alongside a new Lower School Academic Scholars’ Journal – the first edition of the Pilot Light will be published in the spring term, shedding Mehr Licht (more light) on a range of topics.

However, opportunities for scholarship are not restricted to the Academic Scholars. This year, Lower Sixth students will complete

The South Hampstead Essay on an academic subject they are passionate about. The Great Ideas Lecture Series, the Upper Sixth Speaker Series, timetabled academic enrichment electives and illuminating co-curricular options are just some of the many initiatives designed to foster the intellectual curiosity of every South Hampstead student.

Two of our Upper Sixth Academic Scholars, Jane Barraclough and Anoushka Rattan, have been instrumental in providing guidance to contributors and editing their submissions, and I would like to thank them for their efforts. I hope this journal inspires all those who read it to embark upon their own intellectual voyage.

JANE BARR ACLOUG H AND ANOUSHK A R AT TAN Upper Sixth Academic Scholars

JAMIE WALLER Director of Sixth Form

5B E ACO N I SSUE 02 Navigation4 The Academic Scholars’ Journal of South Hampstead High School

Contents

06

The star of Bethlehem: how plausible was the Wise Men’s navigation to Jesus? BY NATA SHA AR AKCHEE VA

08

Navigating our decision-making process: how to strike a balance between rational and emotional thinking BY SONYA BELKIN

10

An essay on navigating our fear of differences through film BY DUHA BIL AL

12

Unsung navigators of the ‘Age of Exploration’

BY NATA SHA BO GOD

14

How technology can overcome the limitations of the traditional street addressing system BY C A SSANDR A CHOI

16

Navigating the teenage body clock BY NATA SHA G IBSON - HALL

18

Navigating information revolutions: lessons from the invention of the printing press BY LUCIA HENWO OD

20

The spread of language: how navigation gave us the words we use today BY EMILY MAN

24

Navigating the stars: the future of space travel BY ELE ANOR ROBERTS

26

How do animals navigate when migrating? BY AMELIE TODD


The star of Bethlehem: how plausible was the Wise Men’s navigation to Jesus?

BY NATA SHA AR AKCHEE VA

The Bible is rarely regarded as a book of fact. One third of clergy members don’t believe in the resurrection, and even fewer British Christians believe in the Bible verbatim.

Nevertheless, this religion has permeated British culture. 26 of the 300 people in the House of Lords are Christian bishops, all Christian festivals are national holidays, and almost every schoolchild has, at some point, taken part in a staged version of the Nativity, the birth of Jesus.

The question is this: how plausible is the supposed star navigation of the magi to this extraordinary birth?

The word used in the Bible is “magi”, which means wise men, but can also be translated as priests, sorcerers or, perhaps most fittingly, astrologers. It would not have been just stars that they would have studied, but other celestial bodies like the planets or comets. It is therefore important to consider these, as well as question the event itself.

There is also an issue regarding Jesus’ birth. It is unlikely that he was born in winter,

considering the fact that the shepherds were “keeping watch over their flock”, which was most probably during spring, as lambs are born then. The year is also unknown, due to the conflicting information in the Gospels. Matthew states the birth as under Herod the Great, and Luke claiming it was after Herod’s death. It is most likely that Jesus was born sometime around 4AD, rather than year 0.

There are two versions of the nativity in two Gospels, Matthew and Luke. These differ because Matthew wrote to appeal to a Jewish audience, and therefore included fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament about the birth of Jesus, whereas Luke includes minimal reference to them as his intentions were to convert gentiles.

In Matthew, the star “went before [the magi] until it came and stood over [Jesus]”, implying that the star was able to move, which could suggest it was actually a meteor, were it not for the fact that meteors flash across the night sky in a matter of a few seconds. A more likely candidate would therefore be a comet which does appear static but would have been known to move by trained astrologers like the magi. Halley’s comet was visible in the autumn of 11BC, which is close to the date of the incarnation, making it a suitable contender. However, since comets move, navigation by one would be very difficult. Stars, although they also move in the night sky, are more reliable for navigation as they be seen easily with the naked eye, and used to find your way as listed below:

1. Place two sticks in the ground about a metre apart.

2. Pick any star and line it up with the tops of both sticks.

3. Due to the rotation of the Earth, the star will seem to move. Left means you’re facing North, right is South, East is up and West is down.

4. Head in the direction of Christ’s birth.

In Matthew, the magi told Herod that the Messiah was to be born “In Bethlehem in Judea”, suggesting they already knew the direction in which they had to go, and the appearance of the star was simply a sign for their voyage to begin. This indicates that they could have made their way to Christ’s birth even without this star to guide them.

In Luke, there is no mention of a star at all. Instead, several shepherds are told directly by an angel that they would find Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. The book of Numbers in the Old Testament states that “A star will come out of Jacob”. It is therefore likely that Matthew included a star in his version of the birth narrative to stress Jesus’ divinity, and there may not have been any such astrological event at all.

As well as this, stars are often used in the Bible to symbolise God and so are often associated with angels. It is therefore plausible that when Matthew was writing about a star leading the wise men to Jesus, he meant it to be a metaphor for an angel, which would explain its sudden appearances, disappearances, and sporadic movements. Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult to prove or theorise on such an occurrence, despite how fascinating it would be.

Another alternative was thought of by Dr Molnar, who was a scientist who thought that the magi were actually following the

moon eclipsing Jupiter. In his research he found that ancient astrologers believed a new king would be born in the event of an eclipse, and that an eclipse did occur twice in a very short amount of time: in March and April of 6 BC. This would account for the “star” appearing to the wise men twice, and is also very close to the year of Jesus’ birth. That makes this event the most likely candidate for the title The Star of Bethlehem.

Overall, we cannot ever be completely sure about just what exactly occurred that fateful day, sometime between 2 and 6 AD. However, something important must have, and it helped the Bible to become one of the most influential books in the world. The existence of the star or the magi ultimately makes no difference to the story of the Nativity. All the difference has been made by the story itself.

Bibliography

• www.nytimes.com/1991/12/22/nyregion/new-theory-on-the-christmas-star.html

• www.universetoday.com/22227/the-christmas-star-fact-or-fiction/

• www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20730828

• www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1403106/One-third-of-clergy-do-not-believe-in-the-Resurrection.html

• www.bible-reflections.net/sermons/biblical-symbolism-of-stars/3011/

• www.space.com/14036-christmas-star-bethlehem-comet-planet-theories.html

Halley's comet in 1986. The next time it will be back is 2061.

Polaris, the North Star, is the only star in the night sky that does not move.

Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ% of people asked about the Bible story of Christmas rising from the dead

Source: ComRes survey of 2,010 Bristish adults for BBC local radio

0 20 40 60 80 100

Do not believe

Don't know

Believe Bible Version

Believe (but not as in bible)

General public All Christians Active Christians

E M OTI O N S H AV E TAU G HT M A N K I N D

TO R E A S O N


Navigating our decision-making process: how to strike a balance between rational and emotional thinking

BY SONYA BELKIN

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.”

Many of us are inclined to disagree. Is it not our ability to be rational that sets us apart from other animals? To make choices, weighing up the advantages and disadvantages, to compare the long-term and short-term benefits of a decision, to construct complex ideas such as democracy – how can these exist if not due to rational human thought?

Yet, despite our instinctive rejection of Wilde’s observation, his words undoubtedly hold some truth. For instance, most Western countries pride themselves on their democratic governments, which allow voters to choose a candidate who most represents their preferences and aspirations for the country’s future. However, studies such as Stulp et al., 2012, have shown the alarming truth: our beliefs in what makes a good leader aren’t wholly based on how fair we find their policies but, rather, appear correlated with the seemingly arbitrary measure of politicians’ heights. Stulp’s results showed that “presidential height, and in particular the relative difference in height between the elected candidate and the runner-up, was a significant predictor of the relative amount of electoral support” and further found that “re-elected presidents were significantly taller (about 5.5 cm) than presidents who did not succeed in getting re-elected”. Another experiment, conducted by Professor Gregg Murray, supports this view. Participants were

asked to draw a picture of a leader meeting a citizen and 64% of participants drew a leader who was taller than the citizen (the results were similar when replicated with international students). From an evolutionary perspective, this possibly was a rational way of deciding who would make a good leader – height is often associated with being formidable, thus would be an advantageous quality in a leader, who could more easily protect their community. However, over time, our association of height and good leadership has become so strong that we subconsciously use this shortcut in situations to which it doesn’t apply, intuitively linking height and good leadership. That height correlates to good leadership is just one example of a mental shortcut (known as a “heuristic”) we have collectively learned to employ, evidencing our irrationality. By leaping ahead, we stop ourselves from properly evaluating our decisions.

Another example of this process is demonstrated by an experiment conducted by Kahneman and Tversky in 1982. Participants were given a description of a woman named Linda, an outspoken woman who cares strongly about social justice, and then asked to judge the likelihood of her having different jobs. Over 80% of participants, when choosing between Linda being a bank-teller and Linda being a feminist and a bank teller chose the latter. However, although Linda’s personality traits made her out to seem like a feminist, making our brains judge that her being a feminist bank-teller was more likely, we forget that it is far more likely that Linda is only a bank-teller (as this means she has to fulfil one condition, rather than two). By trusting our instincts – the way we associate being outspoken and feminism – we irrationally choose the wrong answer. Examples such as the ones above seem to point to only one conclusion; as humans, we aren’t the perfectly rational creatures we assert ourselves to be. We are fundamentally unable to make decisions based purely on reasoning.

And yet, is emotional thinking really such a disadvantage? Do we even want to aim for the goal of being perfectly rational beings which carefully analyse every decision until they are sure of the answer? From another point of view, it seems that our instincts, while potentially misguided in some cases, are far more important to a decision-making process, and should, therefore, be valued more highly.

Intuition is something we, as humans, use often; we get a ‘funny feeling’ about people and make decisions based on our instincts that something ‘feels right’. In 2002, a firm named Christian and Timbers found that 45% of corporate executives tend to rely more on their instincts than formal analysis when running their businesses. Surely, if so many professionals trust their gut over their carefully made decisions, rational thinking is not as necessary as we would be inclined to believe? Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, cites the case of the Kouros, where art history experts, despite knowing that the statue had passed several tests which proved its authenticity, rejected the rational conclusion, believing instead that the Kouros was fake. And, following ten million dollars’ worth of tests, they were proven right; the statue was a fake. It isn’t only experts in certain fields who are able to make such remarkable intuitive judgements though; the average human has been shown to reliably infer whether or not an individual is a criminal based on a photo, “after controlling for the gender, race, age, attractiveness, and emotional displays, as well as any potential clues of picture origin” (Valla et al, 2011). None of the participants in the experiment was able to rationally explain what part of a photo gave them the impression that the person was a criminal and yet, they managed to make accurate guesses based on nothing but a single headshot. Studies such as these point to the idea that we may not need to employ a highly rational decision-making process to make

judgements – in some cases, our instincts nudge us in the correct direction.

Yes, Wilde may have been right in his claim – man arguably should not be considered ‘a rational animal’ – but that doesn’t mean we should view our lack of complete rationality as a flaw. Of course, we cannot rely solely on our instincts because of anecdotes such as the Kouros statue. Of course, our first impressions may not always be completely right. However, this doesn’t mean we should discount the emotional, intuitive part of our brain. Instead, we should take our intuitions into account while equally remembering to evaluate them critically: why exactly am I voting for this candidate again – because they project the appearance of a leader? Or because I genuinely think they will improve our country? In this context, knowing our potential biases is a way to avoid falling into their traps. We cannot value rationality over emotion or vice versa – the only way to make good decisions is with a combination of the two. The French moralist Luc De Clapiers put it best: “Emotions have taught mankind to reason.”

Bibliography:

• Intuition in strategic decision making: Friend or foe in the fast-paced 21st century? C. Chet Miller and R. Duane Ireland, The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005)

• Tall claims? Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of US presidents. Stulp et al, The Leadership Quarterly 24 (2013)

• Caveman Politics: Evolutionary Leadership Preferences and Physical Stature. Murray, Gregg R., & J. David Schmitz, Social Science Quarterly 2011

• The Accuracy Of Inferences About Criminality Based On Facial Appearance. Valla et al, Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology (2011)

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Malcolm Gladwell (2005)

• Thinking, Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman (2011)

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Robert B Cialdini (2007)


An essay on navigating our fear of differences through film

BY DUHA BIL AL

I overheard a conversation recently that made me feel uncomfortable, as it exemplified a complex issue in modern society during these divisive times. The conversation inspired me to consider our use of, and more importantly, our fear of, language, and the implications that can have. One of the participants in the conversation was asked to describe someone, and in a rushed and nervous tone said, “Well, I don't want to be rude... but she's black”. I have been reflecting on this response.

It is clear that describing someone as black, in the UK, is not rude or derogatory. And yet I understood where this person was coming from in her nervousness. We seem to have come to a universal agreement as a society that there are just certain things that

we should not mention, which we should perhaps overlook and ignore. Primarily this is because these things can make us feel uncomfortable to talk about, or because we run the risk of offending someone, or making them feel alienated or different. We live in a society, particularly as Londoners, which preaches equality and the integration of communities, and for us all to live harmoniously amongst one another without our differences getting in the way. We are told that to make this happen we should use our language in a kind and considerate

manner, which makes everyone feel included – and I want to clearly preface my argument by saying that all of the above are vitally important for us to be able to live in a multicultural society.

But the issue is that many of us are no longer able to differentiate for ourselves between what is considerate and what is offensive. We have become stagnant in our advancement towards true equality because we can no longer comfortably ask people about their different experiences and the obstacles that they may have had to face, because even the simple act of admitting that someone is different in any way has begun to feel

“racist”. If we can no longer take on board the stories and hardships of others, then we cannot help them, and ourselves, in curating a society which will overcome these challenges. Political correctness, although its intentions are noble, has offered us an excuse to ignore having these difficult conversations. These are conversations which may well put the blame on us. Without this we can never learn about what we need to improve and so

will continue to live in a society which hides under a façade of equality instead of really addressing any of our underlying issues or feelings towards one another.

With this in mind, I decided to explore how far the film industry and the media that we consume have played a role in exacerbating this state of affairs.

Let us first examine the crows in the Disney film Dumbo. Their portrayal was racially insensitive, to say the least. They were

designed to embody all of the negative stereotypes associated with black people in 1940s America. They have not aged well, so when the time came to remake the film it was interesting to anticipate how they would turn this unfavourable part of Disney history into a moment of teaching or empowerment, as we have seen them do with other remakes. For the last several years, Disney has been churning out remake after remake of its classic stories. The majority of the original classics are flawed in one way or another, especially in their portrayal of women. In order to correct this, Disney has taken to turning their once dainty and fragile princesses into strong and independent women, who are completely aware of everything that is being done to them, and take an active stance in deciding their fate and rescuing themselves. The main advantage of this, besides averting criticism of their earlier works, is that these newer, bolder princesses are more likely to appeal to young girls who cannot connect with the dull, soulless princesses of the past, and so Disney are able to monetise this through selling new princess merchandise. Disney are able to kill two birds with one stone by rewriting their history and helping to empower young girls with new role models, whilst also making a lot of money for themselves.

So what did Disney do about the crows? The answer is nothing. They ignored that they had ever existed by making no mention of them – primarily because there is no easy way to fix the issue of the crows, there is no way to monetise it or make Disney look any better by addressing it. This habit of ignoring the issue of race when it becomes uncomfortable is evident in other Disney movies, such as the Princess and the Frog. Here, the fact that Tiana is a poor young black woman in 1920s America is fundamental to the plot, and we can clearly see what Disney is alluding to by placing her alongside a rich, white best friend. But the filmmakers are not confident enough to make explicit that it is systemic racism

during this time which is keeping Tiana down. Are the children watching these films meant to pick up on this? All that they are seeing is another portrayal of black poverty without an explanation of why this is so common in society. This undermines the point of representing this group, as no real awareness is brought to their issues.

What connects the examples of the overheard conversation, the crows, and Princess Tiana, is that in all three examples there is an unwillingness to address the issue of race explicitly. An argument can be made that these are movies made for children and therefore it is unnecessary to consider these issues fully. But it is young people who should be exposed to this sort of material because they are the ones who will grow up to shape our world, and should be equipped with the vocabulary and the courage to do so. They should feel comfortable asking questions and talking openly about these topics because that is the only way we can ever move forwards. The only way that this can be done is if the media that they consume does not ignore these topics or forget to have these important conversations.

We need to address these topics head on with an eagerness to navigate through difficult terrain and a willingness to be open with one another. I fear that we will end up repeating our mistakes because we were too afraid to address them.

“They should feel comfortable asking questions and talking openly about these topics because that is the only way we can ever move forwards.”


Unsung navigators of the ‘Age of Exploration’

BY NATA SHA BO GOD

The Age of Exploration started at the beginning of the 15th century until the middle of the 17th century and is considered to be the start of globalisation, where explorers began to discover and develop overseas colonies. Many well-known explorers from the time include Christopher Columbus, James Cook, Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, however there were many other explorers who made significant advances in the field of navigation, yet are often overlooked.

Ferdinand Magellan was born in Portugal in 1480 at a time when spice merchants sailed west from Europe around Africa to reach Asia. After enlisting his first fleet at 25, Magellan used globes based on the calculations of the Greek geographer, Ptolemy, as opposed to flat maps to plan an alternative route east around South America. His idea was rejected by King Manuel I of Portugal but Magellan persuaded Charles I of Spain to support a fleet of 5 ships and 270 sailors.

The fleet sailed from the port of Sanlúcar on 20th September 1519 to the Canary Islands from where Magellan crossed the Atlantic, reaching Rio de Janeiro in December. He endured a gruelling 10 month journey down the coast of South America until he discovered a strait (Magellan Strait) through Chile in October 1520. It was a month until Magellan reached the open ocean, which he named the Mare Pacifico, which took over double the anticipated time to cross, since maps underestimated the circumference of the globe by 15%. In March 1521, Magellan arrived in Guam, Micronesia, before sailing to Macton where he was killed on 27th April resolving a dispute between rival lords. Juan Sebastián Elcano led one boat of 18 sailors back to Spain on 6th September 1522.

In the short term, Charles V decided that the journey was too long to be economically viable to repeat, however Magellan’s real impact is seen in the 1560s. The mapmakers who helped him plan his journey created more accurate world maps and the trade routes he discovered allowed goods to be exchanged via South America, enriching much of Europe and allowing the trade of skills and knowledge as well as material goods.

Richard Chancellor was born in 1521 in Bristol. Very little is known about his early life except that he was brought up in the household of Sir Henry Sidney, an English noble. He is also said to have known explorer Sebastian Cabot and geographer John Dee, who taught him more about navigation and trade routes.

In 1553, Chancellor was appointed pilot general of a fleet of 3 ships commanded by Sir Hugh Willoughby with the aim of finding a north-eastern passage from England to China. However, Willoughby’s ship and another accompanying it were destroyed in hostile weather conditions, making Chancellor’s ship the only one to reach the Norwegian port of Vardø. From here, Chancellor travelled overland to Moscow, where he was received warmly by Tsar Ivan IV. Chancellor was able to negotiate a trade deal with Russia with terms favourable to England, thereby fulfilling the English need for a new wool market. Chancellor returned to England in 1554 with a letter from the Tsar promising English trade privileges. Chancellor died after another voyage back from Moscow in a shipwreck off the coast of Scotland.

Chancellor’s efforts led to the formation of the Muscovy Company, a body of English merchants engaged in trade with Russia. They exported wool and metal in exchange for hemp, tallow and cordage and were the first of Britain’s trading links with Russia.

Zheng He, born Ma Sanbao, was born around 1371 in the Yunnan province of China, which

was conquered by the Ming dynasty in 1381, resulting in Ma’s capture, castration and recruitment into the army. By 1390, he had become a junior officer, skilled in warfare and diplomacy with influential friends, including the Prince of Yan, army commander, who became emperor in 1402 following a rebellion. The emperor selected the now Zheng He to be commander in chief of a series of naval missions.

Zheng He commanded 62 ships with 27,800 men, the largest single fleet until the First World War, which carried out 7 voyages between 1405 and 1433. Earlier destinations included modern day South Vietnam, Thailand, Melaka, Java, India and Sri Lanka, where he fought the King of Ceylon and brought him back to China as a captive. Zheng’s fleets reached eastern Africa, modern day Kenya, Somalia, Oman, Yemen, Mecca and Egypt, bringing back emissaries from over 30 states to pay homage to the emperor. Zheng died in Calicut in spring 1433.

Some historians dismiss Zheng’s journeys as a demonstration of the emperor’s maritime

dominance, however these voyages extended China’s political sway over coastal Southern and South-Eastern Asia for over half a century. Furthermore, the voyages also led to a rise in Chinese emigration, setting in motion Chinese colonisation and ensuing tributary trade, which persisted into the 19th century. In addition, the sheer organisational capability and technological advancement demonstrated by Zheng He was unparalleled, leading to a greater understanding of the command and co-ordination of large fleets.

In the Age of Exploration, there were navigators who improved knowledge in the fields of trade, seafaring and command of fleets, whose achievements are often underestimated despite their significance. It is important to remember these achievements as they led to the development of trade and colonisation, which shaped the world today.

An illustration titled 'Embarkation and Departure of Columbus from the Port of Palos', On His First Voyage of Discovery, 3rd of August, 1492.


How technology can overcome the limitations of the traditional street addressing system

BY C A SSANDR A CHOI

An address gives the location of structures through certain information, such as street names and an identifier, which may be a number or name. Being able to physically locate a building has been an important part of the mailing system, and also in large data collection, such as the census, which takes addresses as a parameter. Although at a quick glance the current addressing system may look adequate, it has flaws that many of us are unaware of – we are fortunate enough to live in a society in which this does not affect us to the extent where our daily lives are negatively impacted. This includes the fact that there are duplicate street names. For example, there are around 3,000 streets called ‘High Street’ in the UK and more than 600 in London alone. Street addresses also lack accuracy, leading to time lost in searching for entrances to buildings as well as searching for people within a large area such as a park, which usually contains only one identifier. This leads to confusion and annoyance among users of mapping systems, which take traditional street addresses as parameters. This is seen mostly in the delivery and courier businesses where there is a loss in efficiency, when delivery drivers try to find where to drop off packages and, in some cases, get mixed up with a different location. Errors are made easily, which is further enhanced when on a global scale, due to the fact that different countries have different addressing systems and formats.

Many people take an adequate addressing system for granted as it is so well integrated in our daily lives. However, those without such an addressing system are incapable of

communicating as they essentially live ‘off the grid’ and are unable to access services, such reporting crime in a certain area, or requesting urgent help. 75% of the world suffers from inadequate addressing systems and companies such as What3Words aim to solve this problem. This company produced an algorithm which automatically assigned each 3x3 meter square a three-word long address amongst a grid of 57 trillion squares around the world.

There is not a single location now without a three-word long address, meaning that one can easily communicate their accurate location anywhere around the world. A study in 1957 showed that one’s ability to remember three words immediately is near perfect, making this global addressing system much more suitable and practical in giving a precise location than the using a traditional street addressing system or reciting longitude and latitude coordinates.

It has helped solve problems in rural areas or locations that lack addresses, making it very helpful in humanitarian projects such as delivering aid after a natural disaster, or within informal settlements such as slums and refugee camps. It has also proved helpful in areas of rapid development, as many people often get left behind without a location. Governments around the world are now able to quickly give everyone an address, as the What3Words algorithm takes in the user’s longitude and latitude coordinates from the global positioning system (GPS) as parameters and finds its associated three-word long address – within seconds. A three-word address can also be found through the search function on the website or mobile application, which takes inputs such as a street name or structure name. These three-word addresses are available in over 35 languages allowing global use (thus aiding tourism) and will never change, meaning that for its users it is low maintenance.

The What3Words global addressing system can also work to enhance the daily lives of those with an adequate street addressing system, due to its easy implementation. The company provides a fast and simple interface for other software and apps to integrate. It provides three components, conversion to a three-word address, conversion to coordinates and the autosuggest function. There are easy to follow tutorials in the developer portion of their website, allowing businesses to implement their algorithm promoting wider use of the technology. Navigation errors are minimised due to an accurate destination input, since the What3Words algorithm is able to convert a three-word address back into coordinates for input into a global positioning system within a device such as a car. Finding a meeting place in a large, traditionally unaddressed area is also made easier as a result and with the increase in the use of ride-hailing apps, time is also saved by reducing confusion regarding the pickup location and inaccurate drop-off.

The implementation of What3Words around the globe would help reduce these limitations that the traditional street addressing system poses and would work to enhance the lives of not only those who have access to an adequate addressing system.

Bibliography

• www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49319760

• what3words.com/about-us/

• developer.what3words.com/public-api

• interestingengineering.com/a-3-word-address-geo-coding-the-world-with-just-three-words

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Navigating the teenage body clock

BY NATA SHA G IBSON - HALL

It is now known that the body clock, or circadian rhythm, has a huge shift during adolescence. This shift leads to a change in teenage sleep patterns with the establishment of what is known as ‘super night owls’, and a desire to go to sleep even later than our parents. This short paper examines the nature of the change, why it happens and what we can do to prevent this shift in the body clock leading to teenage sleep deprivation and all that goes with it.

During our teenage years we strive to develop independence. Part of this process is to develop our cognitive skills, critical thinking and reasoning. It’s now scientifically proven that this process and change in our brain’s organisation skills actually occur when we are asleep at night. In fact, it happens during the deepest Deep (Non Rapid-Eye Movement) Sleep Stage. It’s also proven that there are significant

consequences if we are sleep deprived, as I will outline later.

Our still developing brain naturally needs more sleep than our parents. The recommendation is that teenagers get between eight and eleven hours of sleep, with an ideal level for teenagers of nine hours of sleep recommended by the NHS.

The problem comes however with the timing of our sleep clock. Nature has wired us to go to sleep between two to three hours later than our parents, with the sleep hormone melatonin being released later during adolescence. Therefore, being asked to fall asleep at 10pm is the same as our parents going to bed between 7pm and 8pm. For most teenagers this is biologically difficult unless they are sleep deprived!

For those wondering why our body clock should change in this manner, it is postulated that this shift in sleep time is designed to help us develop our independence from our parents. Prehistorically this shift would have given us two hours of solus time as a peer group away from parental influence, and in addition a later wake time in the morning.

In modern school times, however, life isn’t as easy as far as sleep is concerned. For some who need to get up early to travel to school, especially those attending pre-school clubs, it isn’t possible to get the full nine hours. Here the naturally late nights combined with the early school start time can lead to chronic sleep deprivation. In fact, it’s now estimated that 50% of teenagers are sleep deprived.

When we do the maths on sleep and wake times, the problem becomes more obvious. In order to wake up refreshed after 9 hours sleep at say 7am to go to school, we would need to be asleep by 10pm, with an even earlier bed-time to allow time to nod off. Those enjoying an 8am ‘lie-in’ would still need to be fast asleep by 11pm.

One instant effect of lost sleep, such as when cramming for exams, is our inability to retain information. During sleep we convert information learned in the day, which is temporarily stored in our hippocampus, to our long-term memory store in the brain’s cortex. This process is known as consolidation. Just one night of sleep deprivation is proven to affect our memory for three days with a potential decrease in performance at school. Another effect of sleep deprivation is reduced immune function, which can potentially lead to days off school ill. Even our temperamental teenage skin is adversely affected by lack of sleep with our collagen repair process occurring at night.

Sleep also affects our mood, with poor sleep linked to aggression, bullying behaviour and even depression. What’s more, insufficient sleep in childhood is associated with an increase in early onset of drug and alcohol use in later adolescent years. A recent study by the National Centre for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA Columbia) in the United States has shown that high school students who reported getting less than 8 hours sleep were significantly more likely than those who sleep 8 hours or more to be

current users of tobacco (22% vs 15%) alcohol (46% vs 34%) and marijuana (23% vs 17%).

So, what can we do ourselves to help us get more sleep? Limiting the consumption of drinks containing caffeine in all its forms is a good place to start as caffeine is proven to interfere with sleep. Another area to focus on is our use of social media, especially at night. It is recommended that we stop use of all technology at least an hour before bedtime. We should always use night-time modes on technology in order to limit something called ‘blue light emissions’. These produce a ‘blue light’ wavelength which is the same as the morning sunlight and wakes us up rather than helping us sleep. The mental and emotional stimulation of social media is also something to consider when used late at night. Putting dimming software on PCs (flux is a good one) is an obvious solution or getting the lighting ‘softer’ to mimic the setting sun in our bedrooms is another technique which can help us to wind down and relax before bed, as would meditation and relaxation exercises.

Can our school help too? Perhaps when we are in the run up to exams, and studying later in the evening, we could start classes half an hour later and have shorter breaks during the day to still finish school at the same time?

Bibliography:

• www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311517/

• www.sleep.org/articles/teenagers-and-sleep-how-long-is-too-long/

• www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/how-much-sleep-do-kids-need/

• www.neurologytimes.com/blog/teenage-circadian-rhythm

• www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23811690

• www.itdoes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cognitive-consequences-fo-sleep-and-sleep-loss-by-Matthew-P-Walker-2008-in-sleep-medicine..pdf

• www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2850945/

• www.centeronaddiction.org/addiction-research/reports/adolescent-substance-use

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION


Navigating information revolutions: lessons from the invention of the printing press

BY LUCIA HENWO OD

New technologies developed in the past few decades have revolutionised many aspects of life and society, but none more strikingly than the way information, from news and current affairs to new ideas and theories, is disseminated and conveyed. This has opened up an unprecedented range of information and data to the public, creating challenges of distraction and misinformation, as well as opportunities. Some have argued that the transformation witnessed now has ‘only been matched once before in history’ , with the invention of the printing press in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg in around 1439. Then, as now, the changes taking place contributed to a wave of unrest, conflict and disruption, which makes looking at the printing press and its consequences a valuable tool for understanding how to deal with the instability of our own times.

Just as the scale of the changes brought about by the internet has been debated, there are also a wide range of interpretations about the way in which the printing press transformed society. According to some historians, the impact of the printing press was radical, shaping the course of both the rise of capitalism and the Reformation (when the power of the Catholic Church began to be challenged by reformers who opposed certain Church customs), two developments which formed modern Europe. For others, however, information in the decades which followed the invention of the printing press was characterised far more by continuity than change. In many ways, printing became connected to the existing intellectual life of late Medieval Europe: similar books were published and for a while manuscript and

printed books existed side by side; scribes became printers and the main reading audience continued to be universities and church organisations. What is undeniable, however, is that the invention of the printing press allowed written information to be created on a previously unseen scale, as the number of books being produced ‘grew exponentially’ by about thirty times in the following century with over 40,000 titles and 10 million books being produced in the first fifty years.

Within two generations, printing had spread to two hundred and fifty towns, from major intellectual centres, such as Paris, Venice and Bologna, where printing shops created books which were exported around Europe, to smaller towns, where printing catered to a more provincial local market. Individual printers also travelled around Europe with some cities, especially in Italy, which had few domestically trained printers, setting up incentives such as free housing, exemptions from taxes and financial backing to attract talented individuals. This meant that literary tastes across Europe became more international, as foreign printers were influenced as much by ideas in their home countries as the cities in which they worked when selecting books for publication.

This is one reason why the invention of the printing press has been identified as one of the causes of the Reformation. While many of the ideas which influenced the Reformation had first been articulated by preachers such as Jan Hus and John Wycliffe decades earlier, they were able to gain a far wider audience thanks to the printing press. Not only did the printing press enable influential texts arguing for reforms to the Church, most notably Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, to be reproduced quickly and disseminated around Europe, but it also changed the way in which information was viewed. As books became cheaper to produce, buying or commissioning them stopped being the preserve of the Church

and state, meaning that information from other sources became more widely accepted, creating a climate in which radical ideas could be received. Furthermore, the increased availability of information in the form of books, often translated from other languages and designed for a wider reading public, contributed to an idea that knowledge should be available to the public in an accessible and comprehensible form, something which lay behind drives for the Bible to be translated into the vernacular, which formed a crucial part of reformers’ demands.

So what can we learn from these developments? According to some historians, the aftermath of the invention of the printing press was marked by profound conflict and upheaval, including the deadliest war in European history, the Thirty Years War. But as the technology became more widely accepted and managed, things settled down naturally and great progress was made. Those who subscribe to this view and believe that events now echo those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would argue that little can be done to navigate the turmoil caused by information revolutions, let alone

stop them in their course, but overall their impacts turn out to be positive. Others would argue that the parallels between technological innovation now and the invention of the printing press are limited and that the transformation seen today will be far more dramatic, breaking the traditional ‘communications circuit’ between author, publisher and reader, which has existed throughout history and blurring the lines between consumers and creators of information. However, regardless of whether changes now reflect or go beyond those in the past, looking at the way the printing press impacted society is still useful in understanding how best to manage the effects of the information revolution transforming our lives today.

Bibliography:

• The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

• The Printing Press as an Agent of Change by Elizabeth Eisenstein

• The Printed Word: its Impact and Diffusion edited by Rudolf Hirsch

• Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, circa 1450-1520 edited by Sandra Hindman

• 95 Theses about Technology by John Naughton

EUROPE

ASIA

Black Sea

MediterraneanSea

Adriatic Sea

AFRICA

SICILY

CRETE CYPRUS

IBERIASARDINIA

Tingis(Tangier)

Carthage

Lepcis

Memphis

ByblosSidon

TyreCyrene

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Aegean Sea

The Commercial Networkof the Phoenicians

PhoeniciaTrade routes


The spread of language: how navigation gave us the words we use today

BY EMILY MAN

Almost every single language is part of a language family, with a long history behind it, and often spanning continents. Ethnologue, an American annual reference for living languages, maintains that there are 7,111

“living” (currently being used as a primary form of communication) languages still being spoken today from 141 language families. However there is still much dispute about which language families are the biggest or indeed how many languages currently exist. Glottolog, a German database for lesser-known languages, claims 8594 languages are currently used. Some languages are known as “isolates”, they are not related to another modern language. One example is Basque from Southern France and Northernmost Spain. Many sign languages appear to have developed in isolation and have no relatives. For a language to survive it must spread, and the history and family of a language can be traced by its journey. The first crucial factor in a language’s spread is the ease with which it can be communicated over long distances and learnt by those unfamiliar with it, through the writing system.

Having a writing system is crucial for a language to spread and develop. It is estimated that roughly half of living languages today have a developed script. Most languages that do not have a written system struggle to expand beyond a relatively small community or over large physical borders such as mountains and oceans, or they may adopt another script to transliterate into. Writing gives languages a physical record as well as allowing people to communicate over further distances

by preserving text more efficiently and accurately than by word of mouth. It also helps to save a language if native speakers are banned from using it, as with many Native American languages. Languages are generally written in two different ways: logograms, characters which represent something without depicting the sounds to say it (e.g. Mandarin or numbers), and syllabic script, characters which represent phonetic sounds and when put together form different words (e.g. English) or a mixture of the two (e.g. Japanese). Languages that use a purely phonetic alphabet tend to spread more easily because if one knows the syllable symbols to read out what is written, it may sound like a word they have heard and know the definition for. Whereas if one knows the word aurally but the symbol is not phonetic, unless someone teaches them the symbol, they cannot work out how it would sound when spoken and therefore what it means. This is one of the reasons why English has become so widespread today.

So how does language spread? It spreads when the group interacts with another and needs a way to communicate with them, often resulting in either an amalgamation of languages that each group developed or one group teaching the other their language. The main reason for this to occur was trade. Early nomadic groups would have learnt each other’s languages to effectively trade with each other and ensure that they were not being tricked into deceptive deals. Once groups formed permanent settlements, this was still important. The image to the right shows Phoenician trade routes from roughly 1,000BC. Wherever the Phoenicians travelled, they brought their language and syllabic script with them. The most immediate effect of this was to create the alphabet for a language we now think of as Ancient Greek. However, different areas of Greece adopted the Phoenician alphabet differently. The Classical Greek that most people think of

NAVIGATION GAVE USWORDS


as Ancient Greek is descended from Ionian Greek, which was mostly spoken in Eastern Greece (including the borders of Turkey). This Ionic variant of the Phoenician language gave us the Greek alphabet and went on to form the basis for many other Eastern language alphabets including Hebrew, languages in the Indic family (Indo-European), the Brahmic family (South-East Asia) and even as far north as Russia to influence the Cyrillic alphabet. However, in other areas of the Mediterranean and Western Greece, the Phoenician language developed into the Cumae variant which gave us the Latin alphabet and led to the development of Romance languages and runes. Through their extensive trade route, Phoenicians have ensured the lasting legacy of their language across Europe and Asia.

The other crucial vector of language is war. This is best shown with the spread of Latin under the Roman Empire and the resulting Romance languages across the whole of Europe, even as far as Scandinavia. Although the Latin alphabet was not adopted, the original Phoenician alphabet survived in the form of runes. It is also demonstrated with the presence of English across the globe as a result of British Imperialism. It is not uncommon for the language of successful invaders to rub off on those invaded or even to replace indigenous ones entirely. Another contradictory purpose of language is to create outsiders, forming stronger bonds of those who speak the language and isolating those who do not. The complicated alliances formed by warring tribes, and later nations, help to allow for the spread of languages between groups for cooperation. The path of alliance and invasion allows languages to spread extreme distances as shown in China and Russia, where a central few languages are understood by different ethnic groups over vast areas, even if they maintain their own.

Overall, navigation has spread language primarily in the form of war and trade. However, with the advent of the Internet and better technology and communications than ever before, the future of linguistic exchange may be about to change.

References:

• Glottolog.org. (2019). Glottolog 4.0 -. [online] Available at: glottolog.org/glottolog/language [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

• Ethnologue. (2019). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. [online] Available at: www.ethnologue.com/ [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

• Greek Historical Linguistics. (2019).

• Kohn, M. (n.d.). Four words for friend.

• Dorren, G., Audring, J., Watson, F. and Edwards, A. (2016). Lingo.


Navigating the stars: the future of space travel

BY ELE ANOR ROBERTS

For millennia, we have been navigating by the stars. Now, we’re hoping to navigate to them. We have been pushing our technology to the limits to send probes and people further than we ever have before, with Voyager probes leaving the Solar System and a manned mission to Mars never far off the table. Logically, our next step would be travelling to other stars and even other galaxies.

Our nearest star, Alpha Centuri A, is 4.22 light years away, and with current technology (found in the New Horizon Probe) it would take 54,000 years to reach. This, obviously, is not feasible. One solution would be to make our probes travel faster, as if they could travel at or around the speed of light then surely they would be able to reach it within years, not millennia.

Unfortunately, Einstein would have a problem with this. He stated that the greater your velocity, the greater your mass, and at the speed of light (300,000km/s) you would

have infinite mass. Any object of infinite mass would require an infinite amount of energy to move, thus limiting everything in the universe to a speed of under 300,000km/s. This, and the fact that current technology can only reach a meagre 23.26km/s, has scientists thinking of other ways that humans could walk (or at least fly) among the stars.

An unlikely source of inspiration is the popular Sci-Fi show Star Trek, in which the producers created a fictional propulsion system that allowed their characters to travel around the cosmos in seconds. However, this was merely a science fiction plot device to allow their story to be fast paced and universe-wide. That is, until Miguel Alcubierre made it science fact(ish).

His theory utilises a loophole in the speed of light limit, in which instead of accelerating the rocket to the speed of light, we decrease the distance between the ship and the star. Now, this might seem impossible (and a little crazy), but in theory there is a scientific way to do this, and yes, they are calling it a Warp Drive. The idea of a Warp Drive is that is uses a ‘warp bubble’ to distort space-time (space and time are a single concept for theoretical physicists) so that it compresses in front of the ship and expands behind it. The ship travels through the compressed area of space and therefore it has significantly less distance to travel. Essentially, the ship creates a wave in space-time and rides on it like a surfer rides on a wave. This concept is supported by the idea that space-time did expand much faster than the speed of light during the Big Bang, so it must be possible. With this loophole, ships could theoretically exceed the equivalent of 10 times the speed of light.

The next problem is how to build one.

Originally, the design of the ship was going to be a ring (which creates the distortion) with a rugby ball-shaped capsule in the centre. The ring was later changed to a doughnut (or torus) shape, which increases the ship’s

efficiency. Scientists theorised two ways of making this ring able to compress and expand space-time. One is to make it out of negative mass/energy (again, a single concept in physicists’ eyes). When put in the right shape, it would force space-time to

compact in front of it. The major drawback of this idea is that negative mass/energy is highly theoretical. Currently, scientists are only able to create extremely small amounts in labs using lasers, but nothing large or stable enough to be a practical option. The other is by giving the ring huge amounts of mass. Scientists have found that space-time does ‘warp’ in the presence of large gravitational fields (picture an object ‘warping’ a flat bed sheet when the object is placed on the sheet), but with the current design, the mass required to perform this is too large to be considered practical, especially as it has to get into orbit.

The idea produces many problems aside from its design. For one, the energy required to power even the most efficient version of the ship on a journey to Alpha Centuri is equal to all the energy consumed by America in a year (6.5 x 1019J). While this is an amount of energy that humans are capable of producing, it would be extremely hard to generate this much energy at once, especially when there are more pressing priorities. Also, it could cause a build-up of particles in front of the bubble during transit, which would result in a huge explosion upon arrival, and there is no way of contacting Earth while inside a warp bubble.

However, despite all the seemingly immovable setbacks, teams across the world are already trying to build prototypes. For example, Harold White from NASA’s Johnson Space Centre has been experimenting with mini versions of a warp drive – creating a

laser interferometer that instigates micro space-time warps. In addition to this, scientists are constantly refining the design, making it more and more viable as an idea.

So, while navigating the stars may seem like science fiction today, technology is developing so quickly that one day, maybe even within our lifetime, we could send humankind not just to other planets, but to other solar systems; and even if we do, the curiosity of humanity won’t stop there. So, who knows what adventures the future will hold?

Bibliography:

• www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/what-would-happen-if-you-traveled-at-the-speed-of-light.html

• www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html

• www.thoughtco.com/is-warp-drive-possible-3072122

“Essentially, the ship creates a wave in space-time and rides on it like a surfer rides on a wave.”


How do animals navigate when migrating?

BY AMELIE TODD

When humans want to travel anywhere, we can find directions in seconds using GPS. Elsewhere in this journal, we have explored how humans are still improving methods of navigation by reforming the system of street addresses. If our destination is nearby and within an area we know, then occasionally we can navigate without the use of Google Maps. However, if we attempted to travel across the globe and back without the use of any form of navigation system or transportation method other than on foot, our chances of success would be microscopic. Thousands of years ago, human beings used celestial bodies, natural landmarks and followed other animals to navigate but due to numerous advancements in the world of navigation over thousands of years, our natural navigation abilities have deteriorated. Despite this, the millions of other animals that we share planet Earth with still use natural navigation methods that facilitate extraordinary feats of migration that are pivotal to the survival of their species.

A wide variety of animals, from Humpback Whales to Monarch Butterflies, migrate each year, often moving to warmer areas in winter months in order to ensure there will be food to eat and also to find an ideal place for breeding and raising young. Currently, the longest migration pattern that has been discovered belongs to the Arctic Tern, travelling 71,000 kilometres each year, a distance of almost double the circumference of the Earth, from the Arctic to Antarctica and back. On the other hand, many animal species do not migrate at all, and others are only short distance migrators. The complete details of how and why different species migrate is still a mystery to scientists, but in recent years

in-depth research, experimentation and animal tracking has allowed us to gain a better insight into their migratory patterns and methods. There is an extensive range of techniques used by animals as a means to navigate, including celestial navigation, using the Earth’s magnetic field and through wind or ocean currents. Many animals will use a combination of navigational methods to travel and migrate vast distances, and often different animal species will have individual techniques they use. In order to discover precisely which navigation methods a species is using, scientists have done controlled experiments to test their hypotheses.

The monarch butterflies are an example of an animal species where extensive research has been conducted into their navigational methods. Each year, monarch butterflies migrate up to 4500 kilometres in September from Northern United States to Southern Mexico in search of a warmer climate. Originally, it was believed that these butterflies used only the sun to navigate by using its positioning, angles of solar rays and shadows, essentially utilising the sun as a compass. This sun compass co-ordinates with an internal clock that almost all living beings have, called the circadian rhythm. It operates on a twenty-four hour cycle in line with the length of a solar day, and it refers to the cycle of physiological processes occurring internally. This allows butterflies and many other animals to calibrate their orientation to compensate for the movement of the sun across the sky and continue travelling at a consistent bearing. Despite this, if it were the case that purely solar navigation was used, it would be impossible for these butterflies to reach their necessary destination on overcast days or after the sun has set.

This suggested to scientists that monarch butterflies may also have an inclination magnetic compass and therefore trials were set up where monarch butterflies were placed in artificially reversed magnetic fields,

and their direction of travel was monitored. The experiments showed that the butterflies would fly in the opposite direction due to the reversal of the magnetic field. On top of this, it was discovered that monarch butterflies have a pair of molecules called cryptochromes, photosensitive proteins that can also detect magnetic fields and it has been suggested that light-sensitive magnetosensors are also present. This conclusively proved that monarch butterflies combine solar and magnetic field navigation and has been one of the first illustrations of the use of an inclination magnetic compass in a long-distance migratory insect. Further research is still ongoing into this method of navigation, and it has even been discovered that humans contain cryptochromes that have the ability to function as light-sensitive magnetosensors, leading some to consider the possibility that humans have a hidden magnetic sense.

However, these migrations are under threat. In recent decades it has become increasingly difficult for animals to migrate as they feel the impacts of climate change and an exploding human population. Many animals,

such as sea turtles, are known for returning to the same beaches where they were born to breed. Due to rising sea levels and increased urbanisation nearly all species of sea turtle are classified as endangered, as far fewer turtles are being hatched. On top of this, the sex of a turtle is decided by the temperature of the surrounding sand and since higher temperatures lead to more females being born, this has led to an uneven distribution of males to females making breeding much harder. Birds are being forced to migrate sooner and further north as temperatures rise and key migration routes are being blocked by roads and cities.

If change doesn’t come soon then countless species are at risk of becoming extinct – their numbers fall drastically each year and soon it will be too late. In the same way that humans have evolved and developed new techniques to navigate, perhaps we will see migratory species develop new mechanisms to allow them to continue their crucial journeys.

Academic Scholarships are awarded based on performance in the entrance/scholarship examination – open to all pupils – the year prior to joining the Sixth Form. Academic Scholarships may also be awarded at 11+ based on performance in the entrance examination or, for pupils transitioning from South Hampstead Junior School, as recommended by the Head of the Junior School.

South HampsteadHigh School

South Hampstead High School 3 Maresfield Gardens London NW3 5SS [email protected]

020 7435 2899 www.shhs.gdst.net

South Hampstead High School is part of the Girls’ Day School Trust, a limited company registered in England, number 6400, and a registered charity, number 306983. www.gdst.net.

Cover artwork: Misha Sofil in Year 11 created the front cover illustration – a digital drawing using an iPad. Misha joined South Hampstead in Year 7, is currently studying Art at GCSE and plans to continue the subject to A Level in the Sixth Form.

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