CHELTENHAM COLLEGE

L6 Independent Projects 2014

Highly Commended - Georgina Thorpe

   

L6 Independent Projects 2014

Introduction from the Headmaster

This booklet is a celebration of some of the fantastic work produced by Lower Sixth Formers as part of their Independent Research Project last academic year. What is so encouraging about the pages that follow is the amazingly high quality work which Cheltonians can produce when given the opportunity to work in genuine depth on a topic of their choice. These projects, and the many which haven’t made it into this publication, will give students an opportunity to stand out from the crowd when it comes to university application and provide a very important focus for the all-important personal statement.

The work contained here clearly indicates that the more students put in to the project the more they will get out of it. I hope it will be an inspiration to the current Lower Sixth.

Dr Alex Peterken, Headmaster  Introduction from the Project Co-ordinators

College is dedicated to helping Sixth Form students to effectively prepare for the future. Whatever our students go on to do when they finish A2, greater independence will be required, both personally and in their approaches to further education. For this reason, all Lower Sixth students undertake an independent research project. This publication celebrates the excellence and creativity of just some of our students, showcasing their unique personal interests and intellectual curiosity. The independent projects are an excellent vehicle for developing self-motivation and proactivity in a student-mentor relationship that mirrors the university model.

The academic rigour of the project prepares students for the skills they will require: thinking logically about arguments and counter-arguments, presenting information in a balanced and persuasive fashion and adopting a critical stance towards sources. Essential practical skills include researching, citation and referencing, essay planning and handling language and data in a precise way. We are proud of what the students have achieved and trust that you will enjoy reading this publication. Cheltenham College is very grateful to Global Philanthropic for supporting the prizes for the projects in recognition of their Chairman, OC Malcolm Hutton, Cheltondale, 1959.

 

Dr Mary Plint, Director of Learning

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CONTENTS Winner

Page

William Moss Bitcoin: a complete guide

3

Highly Commended

Hattie Bevan

Antibiotics: hero or villian? 11

Archie Charlton

Was Alfred the Great great? (National competition entry) 19

Alex Hall

To what extent does Jupiter have greater control over fate in Virgil’s Aenid than in Ovid’s Metamorphoses?

25

Georgina Thorpe

How did Coco Chanel shape French fashion in the 20th century and what effect did this have on women around the world? (Multi-media project)

34

Commended

Miranda Bruce-Smith

They haVE GANged up to save the world: to what extent do you agree? 41

Sophie Caws

‘At the conclusion of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the protagonist Mersault emerges triumphant.’ Discuss.

48

Christine Cheng

Will the emergence of quantum computers pose threats to our encryption systems?

54

Will Donlan

Was the recent mining boom in Australia good or bad for tourism and what does the future hold?

61

Jamie Jamieson-Black

How does altitude affect heart rate and blood oxygen saturation? 68

Christian Johnston Is nanotechnology paradigm shift leading to the emergence of nanomachines as a double-edged sword?

76

Nicholas Liban

How safe is Propofol? 90

Cameron Logan

Scottish independence: the road to freedom or disaster? 100

Eric Robinson How far is literature influenced by the major historical and cultural events of its period?

107

Louis Taylor-Baggs

Is cinema a dead medium? 114

Oliver Thorley Who owed more to Peel: Gladstone or Disraeli, the apprentice or the nemesis? (National competition entry)

120

Donata von Behr What inspires? (Multi-media project)

125

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Bitcoin: a complete guide

By William Moss, U6

Over the past year or so, the general public has become acquainted with the newest form of money – cryptocurrencies. Media hype has been widespread, leading to the formation of two distinct mindsets – those that believe it is a dangerous tool for criminals, and those who think it should be embraced as a type of free, borderless currency that is both safe, and private.1 So what exactly is a cryptocurrency? Here I will be looking specifically at Bitcoin, the first, most famous, and most popular one to have come into existence. An overview of Bitcoin Bitcoin is an online payment protocol, invented by Satoshi Nakamoto (though due to his use of British English and lack of Japanese in his documentation, it is presumed that this is a pseudonym) in 2008, and released as open-source software in 2009.2 At the start, he was in control of the Bitcoin network, however, he slowly handed over the reins to members of the Bitcoin community, until his influence faded out.3 Bitcoin has many features that make it attractive to users, for example, the ability to use a pseudonym to hide your identity from others, and the fact it is a peer-to-peer network that operates without a central bank, that is to say, out of the control of the influence of world governments. Anyone with a computer is able to join the Bitcoin system, and it requires nothing more than downloading and launching an application. Public distrust in the global financial system, especially after the Great Depression of the late 2000s, has also lead to a belief that, in a contemporary society, where bankers, governments, and regulators want to be masters of the money of the people, Bitcoin gives the power back to the user, due to its open source nature (meaning anyone can review the code for any potential ‘back doors’). On the other side of the argument, detractors point out some very noteworthy pitfalls in the system. For example, hidden identities have made it easier for criminals to launder money with very little or no trace, giving rise to an online marketplace for illicit goods and services (the Silk Road), that exists only in the ‘deep web’ or ‘darknet’4. Furthermore, the lack of a central bank means that consumers are not protected if their money is stolen, or if fraud occurs during a transaction5, and that the currency is highly volatile because of a lack of flexible stabilization mechanisms. In the year between August 2013 and August 2014 the value of 1 bitcoin has fluctuated between approximately $130 and $1100. This causes the value of goods, compared to the US Dollar, to change, even while the transaction takes place.

                                                                                                               1 Ramzan, Z., n.d. Bitcoin: What is it? | Bitcoin | Khan Academy. [Online] Available at: http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking [Accessed August 2014]. (Adamowsky, 2014) 2 Bitcoin Community, n.d. Bitcoin - Bitcoin. [Online] Available at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin [Accessed August 2014]. 3 Bitcoin, H.o., n.d. The Compleete History of Bitcoin (Timeline). [Online] Available at: http://historyofbitcoin.org. 4 Editors, V., 2014. How to Search the Deep Web. [Online] Available at: http://www.wikihow.com/Search-the-Deep-Web [Accessed August 2014]. 5 Adamowsky, E., 2014. Bitcoin: The Pros and Cons for Consumers and Merchants - Yahoo Finance. [Online] Available at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-pros-cons-consumers-merchants-140041526.html [Accessed August 2014].

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To mitigate this, some marketplaces have been operating a hedging system, whereby the value in US Dollars is fixed at the time of transaction, and the owner of the marketplace (e.g. Dread Pirate Roberts, owner of the Silk Road) absorbs the losses/gains in value of bitcoins relative to it. 6 Currency, commodity? Bitcoin is often touted as the first decentralized digital currency, however in calling it a currency, we first have to consider the question, ‘What is money?’ During the mercantilism era of the 16th to 18th centuries, vendors and customers would trade a set commodity, like gold, in exchange for goods and services. However, the risk of theft and violence while carrying bars of gold around soon became too great, and banks devised a system where people were able to carry a mode of fiat money, i.e. a paper note, which would be able to be exchanged for the same amount of gold as indicated on the note, so that they could spend money equal to the value of the gold they owned, but while carrying a piece of paper rather than a gold bar. However this system’s drawbacks were eventually found out. Banks operated by holding a portion of their customers’ total deposits, knowing (or thinking, in some cases) that they wouldn’t withdraw the whole value. This system, called fractional reserve banking, caused profits and losses to both be multiplied, and a contemporary example of this method’s drawbacks is the large debts that caused the early 21st century’s Great Depression. In 1933, the US dollar was decoupled from gold, and all gold was seized at the value of around $20 per troy ounce, and no longer was the currency worth an amount in gold, it just existed on its own. The price of gold in US Dollars for international transactions (so that foreign countries would still be able to conduct trade with the USA) was artificially set at $35 per troy ounce, an increase of 75% on the price it had forcefully confiscated it off its citizens for in an attempt to curb the domestic abandonment of the dollar. When the commodity (in this case gold), had an intrinsic value of more than the value in dollars, the people leapt away from the fiat currency towards the commodity.7 However, the advent of World War 2 curbed the depression, meaning a gold standard dollar was again deemed viable after the war, but due to the massive gold reserves held by the USA, many countries instead opted to base their currency on the value of the dollar. In 1945 the precursor to the International Monetary Fund was created. However, due to its leading position as the owner of the ‘world currency’, the USA held too much power over it. It used its influence within it to maintain a huge trade deficit, meaning that more US dollars began circulating worldwide than the USA had in gold, which it was supposed to represent. It was clear that the monetary system didn’t work, and drastic measures had to be taken in return for avoiding hyperinflation, as observed in Zimbabwe (where £1 is now equal to 61 486 423 Zimbabwean Dollars), and the likely the death of the currency. But in 1973, the US dollar having been taken off the gold standard two years earlier, Saudi Arabia agreed to sell oil only in US Dollars, and so again the Dollar was linked with a commodity, rescuing it from its predicament and creating the so-called ‘petrodollar’. The advantage of Bitcoin here is that it can be thought of partly as a commodity, due to the almost-constant slow increase in supply, as well as the potential to be used all around the world as payment.8 Eventually, its supply will run out, but to reach the 21 million cap on the number of bitcoins it will take                                                                                                                6 Greenberg, A., 2014. Founder Of Drug Site Silk Road Says Bitcoin Booms And Busts Won't Kill His Black Market. [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/16/founder-of-drug-site-silk-road-says-bitcoin-booms-and-busts-wont-kill-his-black-market/ [Accessed 2014]. 7 Anon, 2014. Bitcoin and the History of Money. http://www.BTCTheory.com, 23 June. 8 Wei, Z., 2014. Economics 411: Monetary and Financial Theory. [Online] Available at: https://econ411w14.lsa.umich.edu [Accessed August 2014].

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over 100 years. As the system matures, due to the exponential decrease in the number of new Bitcoins introduced per time period, the value will first attempt to stabilise more than the huge fluctuations we see today, and become almost like gold. Although, the currency could be subject to severe deflation if mass adoption occurs after, or near, the Bitcoin cap, however the percentage margins on trade undertaken in Bitcoin would remain the same, causing the effect on profits to be negligible in real-time. Furthermore, it is important to note that Bitcoin only has the value that the people decide they are willing to pay for it. It is a non-representative and non-fiat currency, meaning that although it can now take the place of the stored commodity such as gold in some traditional financial schemes such as the fractional reserve banking that was mentioned earlier, it is a far less complex system, unbound by politics and regulation, than those that exist today, while still leaning towards the older ways of conducting trade, removing the safety risks that came with it. The mechanics of Bitcoin The private key The first thing a user must do when they want to create an address to send and receive bitcoins from is to randomly generate a 256-bit ‘private key’. In a computer, all information is stored in binary, as a ‘bit’, so 1 bit can have either the value 1, or 0. However, here the Bitcoin protocol uses the hexadecimal numbering system (base-16 instead of binary’s base 2). As there are 16 possible values for each character space (Fig. 1), the length of the private key can be found by solving the equation 2256 = 16x , meaning it is 64 characters long. This private key will be needed whenever you want to authorise a transaction by ‘signing’ it, and therefore it must be kept as a secret. Figure 1 The public key The next step is to generate the 512-bit public key (with a prefix attached). As a 512-bit sequence is twice as long, we can see it will be contain 128 characters, with the prefix 04 then added to the front. This is done by putting the private key through Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm cryptography, or ECDSA. An elliptic curve is a curve satisfying the Weierstrass equation of y2 = x3 + ax + b, and have the property that if you draw a straight line through the curve and 3 points (A, B, and C) are intersected by that line, then A + B + C = 0.9 Adding coordinates is not the same as adding integers, and is done as so:10 λ= (yb - ya)/(xb - xa) xc = λ2 – xa – xb yc = λ(xp – xr) - yp

                                                                                                               9 Kakaroto, 2012. How the ECDSA algorithm works. [Online] Available at: http://kakaroto.homelinux.net/2012/01/how-the-ecdsa-algorithm-works/ [Accessed August 2014]. 10 Anon, 2014. Elliptic Curve Point Multiplication. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_point_multiplication [Accessed August 2014].

 2256  =  16x     256  =  4x  2256  =  (24)x     x  =  256/4  2256  =  24x     x  =  64        

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This signifies that if you take two points along the elliptic curve, you can calculate where the line that passes through them intersects the curve again. This also means that we are able to know that to multiply a point by an integer, in other words, adding itself to itself a number of times, the equation A+A holds true. We are able to simply follow the previous equation, modifying it slightly. λ= (ya - ya)/(xa - xa) = 0 x2a = λ2 – xa – xa = -2xa y2a = λ(xa – xa) – ya = -ya

This can be repeated to obtain for any integer value multiple of the coordinate A. The most useful aspect of using elliptic curves is that multiplying a point on the curve by a known integer is very easy (e.g. 10A = B), however, if all you know are the coordinates A and B, finding the solution to nA=B (where n = private key, B=public key), and so n=B/A, means you would have to inversely multiply the coordinates, which is very hard to solve, even for supercomputers.11 The address Finally, to generate the Bitcoin address, the 512-bit public key must be hashed down to 160 bits, firstly through the SHA-256 cryptographic hashing algorithm, followed by RIPEMD-160. SHA-256 was developed by the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) primarily to secure their own resources12, and given the recent media attention focused on the agency in no small part to those such as Edward Snowden; you may wonder how we can trust in the security in this algorithm. However, the coding of the function has been in the public domain for a number of years now, and the consensus by expert cryptographers is that it is secure and safe to use. It is also what comprises the largest part of Bitcoin’s anonymity, security systems, and protocol in general. Using a 256-bit digest provides extremely good protection against brute force preimage attacks (whereby the process is repeated using various inputs until the output matches the output you are aiming to break down), and requires 2256 attempts to obtain a 100% probability of succeeding. There is a second method of engineering the hashing function, called a collision attack, which tries to find two different messages that produce the same message digest.13 Due to a technique based on the birthday paradox (whereby you only need a group of 23 people to have an over 50% probability of two or more of them sharing a birthday)14, finding two inputs that correspond to the same output only requires 2128 brute force runs on average.15 This vulnerability is impossible to avoid, as the message you put into the algorithm can be of an arbitrary length, and one tiny change to the message will affect the hash output greatly, while the digest is always (using SHA-256) of length 256 bits.16 The end result is then inputted into the RIPEMD-160 algorithm to further reduce its

                                                                                                               11 Sullivan, N., 2014. A (Relatively Easy To Understand) Primer on Elliptic Curve Cryptography. [Online] Available at: http://blog.cloudflare.com/a-relatively-easy-to-understand-primer-on-elliptic-curve-cryptography [Accessed August 2014]. 12 tbs internet, 2013. All about SHA1, SHA2 and SHA256 hash algorithms. [Online] Available at: https://www.tbs-certificates.co.uk/FAQ/en/sha256.html [Accessed August 2014]. 13 Rashid, FY 2014, 'How Thieves Steal Your Bitcoins', PC Magazine, p. 17, Advanced Placement Source, EBSCOhost, viewed 2 September 2014. 14 Azad, K., 2014. Understanding the Birthday Paradox | BetterExplained. [Online] Available at: http://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-birthday-paradox/ [Accessed August 2014]. 15 Anon, 2014. Birthday Attack. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_attack [Accessed August 2014]. 16 Ramzan, Z., 2014. Bitcoin: Cryptographic Hash Functions : Khan Academy. [Online] Available at: http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin-cryptographic-hash-function [Accessed August 2014].

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size. The advantage of using both SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160 is little more than gaining a shorter (and therefore more manageable) address, and a small increase in security17, as a single-layered SHA-256 is vulnerable to what is known as a length-extension attack. This type of attack functions because at the end of a message, before hashing, the SHA-256, among other hashing algorithms, have to add ‘length padding’ on to the end of the message, so that the total data to be hashed has a length (in bits) that is equal to a multiple of the length of the resulting hash.18 The 160-bit Bitcoin address that we receive out of the RIPEMD-160 function is then put through a Bitcoin-specific Base58Check binary-to-text encoding. The most common way to represent data on computers is through Base 64, which contains numbers and letters, as well as ‘+’ (plus) and ‘/’ (slash).19 However for Bitcoin addresses, it was decided that removing the non-alphanumeric characters (plus and forward slash), as well as those alphanumeric characters which look similar, such as lower-case ‘L’, capital ‘I’, capital ‘O’ and 0 (zero)20, would be safer and simpler, especially as people often have to type long addresses in manually, and any slight mistake would mean the bitcoins would be lost forever. The Wallet Interchange Format A supplementary string of characters must be generated if you want to use bitcoins through an application, instead of just by manipulating the raw code. This is the WIF, or Wallet Interchange Format. This is an easy process, simply running the 256-bit randomly generated private key you started with through Base58Check, changing it from the base-16 hexadecimal system into ASCII (a common character-encoding which contains English numbers, letters, and symbols). This is so that the application, or ‘wallet’, if you use it to store bitcoins in, can use your private key to validate, or ‘sign’ any transactions you make. Transactions Once a user has sorted out the keys and addresses, bitcoins can start to be spent and received. However, the system is much more complicated than simply sending an exact amount of bitcoins to someone else. Each transaction works as three distinct flows of money - the payment, the change, and the transaction fee. The bitcoin protocol itself works as a system of chained inputs and outputs, all available on a public record, known as the ‘blockchain’. The first thing you must do, in order to pay someone in bitcoins, is to offer up a transaction fee. This will be a reward paid to the ‘miners’ who process, package, and verify the transaction as part of a ‘block’ of transactions, stored on the public blockchain.21 Without a transaction fee, there is no incentive for them to use valuable computing power (and spend money on electricity) mining your transaction, and so it may take many hours for the payment to be confirmed. You must pay someone firstly an exact amount of bitcoins that you received beforehand, before sending any

                                                                                                               17 Bosselaers, A., 2014. The RIPEMD-160 page. [Online] Available at: http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~bosselae/ripemd160.html [Accessed August 2014]. 18 Anon, 2014. Length Extension Attack. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Length_extension_attack [Accessed August 2014]. 19 Anon, 2014. Base 64. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64 [Accessed August 2014]. 20 Anon, 2014. Base58. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base58 [Accessed August 2014]. 21 Ramzan, Z., 2014. Bitcoin: Transaction Records | Khan Academy. [Online] Available at: http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin---transaction-records [Accessed August 2014].

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change that you want from that value back to yourself as a separate payment.22 For example, if beforehand, person A had received 50 bitcoins, and wanted to pay person B 25 bitcoins, then when sending the money, the protocol takes the input (your 50), and creates two payments with it - one from you to the other to the value of 25 (the payment), and one from you, back to yourself, as 25 bitcoins of change. It processes this by sending SHA-256 hashes of the previous transaction, and the proposed transaction, as well as the signature and the public key of person A. Person B can easily check that A’s public key corresponds to A’s address in the previous transaction’s hash to verify that A was indeed paid that sum of money, and then can use A’s public key with the proposed transaction’s signed hash to ensure that it has been signed. Then 25 BTC will be sent to B, and 25 BTC (the change) will be sent back to A. However we haven’t yet accounted for the transaction fee with which to pay the miners, and so, when you send out the payments, you must specify factor in the fee as a part of your change, which essentially, after the payment and change functions have gone through, leave a set amount unclaimed, for the miner who mines the transaction as part of the block to claim.23 Figure 2 Mining Mining in itself provides a dual purpose - instead of solely creating an industry of using computer processing power to earn bitcoins, its primary function is to maintain the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network. It does this by constantly receiving, updating, and passing on the transaction log, to ensure that it is kept accurate and visible to everybody. To protect against errors (or sometimes exploits) such as spending a specific bitcoin twice, that would upset the network, transactions are grouped into blocks, which are then mined around every 10 minutes (or 2016 blocks per two weeks). The hashes of the group of transactions that have taken place since the last block was mined are grouped into a block, and it undergoes a rigorous hashing mechanism. If for example, the block contains three transactions, A, B, and C. As there are an odd number of transactions, C is taken twice, so that we may form a ‘tree’. All of A, B, and C, are SHA-256 double hashed. Then, the double hash of A and the double hash of B are joined together end by end through a process called concatenation. Through the same process, the double hash of C is joined to another double hash of C (essentially doubling it). Both these now-512-bit character strings are doubly hashed another time, before being concatenated (joined)

                                                                                                               22 Ramzan, Z., 2014. Bitcoin: Overview | Khan Academy. [Online] Available at: http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin-overview [Accessed 2014]. 23 Bitcoin Community, n.d. Protocol Specification - Bitcoin. [Online] Available at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification [Accessed August 2014].

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once more, and then undergoing the final round of double SHA-256.24 This end result is called the Merkle root25 of the block, and the process for generating it is named a Merkle Tree. It is from this root, as well as the block headers, that the transactions, and therefore by extension a particular transaction in a block, can easily be verified to be correct and valid payments, instead of the much less efficient process of downloading and processing the entire transaction record of the block. The remaining contents are comprised of a record to the previous block that came before it, so that the blocks are chained together linking back to the very beginning of Bitcoin. However, occasionally splits can appear in the chain, known as forks, because two different parties have mined the block at the same time with valid solutions. The solution to this problem is that when the details of the block are passed around the network from node to node, the Bitcoin client only accepts the longest chain, which in terms of Bitcoin, is the chain that has the highest difficulty. This ensures that only the most rigorous chain of transactions survives in the ecosystem. To accept a block as valid, the SHA-256 hash of the block (its header and contents together) must be less than a set ‘target’ number (in hexadecimal). However this requires an extremely large number of iterations, due to the large number of potential digests gained from the hash function, and the fact that the target number is very small, meaning the probability of a single attempt succeeding is extremely small (less than 1 in 10^19). By changing an arbitrary number, called the nonce value, within the body of the block, you are able to generate a completely different output from the function (indeed, this is a crucial element to all cryptographic hash functions), and this process repeats until hopefully, a value lower than the target value is found. However it is possible that no nonce values could generate such a value, and so the contents of the block are modified, (either the timestamp is edited or a transaction is appended to it), and the process is repeated again.26 The Bitcoin algorithm aims to allow a block to be mined every 10 minutes, however with the arrival of more powerful computers and graphics cards, and specialist Bitcoin mining devices such as FPGAs and ASICs, with ever-increasing hashing rates, times between blocks being solved inevitably decreases. Therefore, after every 2016 blocks have been solved, the protocol evaluates how much smaller the time taken was, compared to the 2 week theoretical sweetspot. From this, it can increase the difficulty by the same percentage difference, aiming to adjust itself and control the hyperinflation that would occur without a protection mechanism.27 We can predict this due to the exponential increase in Moore’s Law, in stating that computer processing power will double every two years (which has so far held true).28 When a block is mined, while the number of bitcoins in existence is still below its 21 million cap set by the protocol, the successful miner receives a set amount of bitcoins as a reward. Originally, this number was set at 50 bitcoins, however it halves every 210 000 blocks, or around every 4 years.29 Currently, 25 bitcoins are given as a reward, with a market value of around £724030, so clearly there is a lot of money

                                                                                                               24 Pacia, C., 2013. Bitcoin Explained like You're Five: Part 2 - Mechanics | Escape Velocity. [Online] Available at: http://chrispacia.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/bitcoin-mining-explained-like-youre-five-part-2-mechanics [Accessed August 2014]. 25 Authors, V., 13. Transactions - What is the Merkle root? - Bitcoin Stack Exchange. [Online] Available at: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10479/what-is-the-merkle-root [Accessed August 2014]. 26 Shirriff, K., 2014. Bitcoin mining the hard way: the algorithms, protocols, and bytes. [Online] Available at: http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoin-mining-hard-way-algorithms.html#ref6 [Accessed August 2014]. 27 Silverman, N., 2014. Bitcoin Price as a Function of Difficulty - Bitcoin Math. [Online] Available at: http://btcmath.com/2013/06/bitcoin-price-as-a-function-of-difficulty/ [Accessed August 2014]. 28 Moore's Law, n.d. Moore's Law. [Online] Available at: mooreslaw.org [Accessed August 2014]. 29 Ramzan, Z., 2014. Bitcoin: The money supply | Khan Academy. [Online] Available at: http://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin-the-money-supply [Accessed August 2014]. 30 Coinbase, 2014. Bitcoin Charts - Coinbase. [Online] Available at: coinbase.com/charts [Accessed August 2014].

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to be made from bitcoins, however the potential costs involved due to hardware and electricity outweigh such a slim possibility of you finding the solution, and so the majority of Bitcoin mining is done as part of a ‘pool’. This is where a group of miners combine their computing resources to mine blocks, and when one of the miners computes a valid answer, the entire pool shares the reward based on the work done towards the problem. It also allows those with a lower-powered computer to earn a small share of the spoils. When the difficulty of Bitcoin mining was lower, this was an easy way to make a quick, but often tiny, profit from doing little else but running an application on your desktop. However nowadays there is an entire industry created around this pursuit31 – in Iceland, due to the freely available geothermal energy sources and the below-freezing climate providing a low cost cooling option, huge datacenters have been created specifically for mining bitcoins32. With regards to the average consumer, even a £250 ASIC device only yields approximately 7p profit per day, and that is without including the future increases in difficulty. It is an activity that has been wrestled out of the hands of the enthusiasts and into the hands of large-scale capitalists. Conclusion Overall, the age of Bitcoin is an exciting development in the contemporary world, and in the future will provide a stern test against those it is trying to topple, having already faced opposition from a number of global powerhouses such as China and Russia.33 Certainly, the large user base already present in these countries means that whenever a new piece of legislation is drawn up to counter the supposed ‘threat’ of cryptocurrencies, the price of a bitcoin topples, magnifying the size of the fluctuations in its price.34 However, it is my opinion that this is not the only reason Bitcoin has been largely unstable so far. For the large part of its short life, Bitcoin has been subject to speculative investment and hoarding, restricting supply, and when media coverage increases with price, increasing demand, driving the price even further into the absurd. After the crash, many people sold their Bitcoin quickly, fearing even further losses in the price, and so what has been experienced is a partial flush of the people who own Bitcoin. Coupling that with increased consumer adoption, in no small part due to lower processing fees than the 2-3% of credit cards, I expect that in the near future the price will settle at a value higher than the £300 it currently sits at35, experiencing slight inflation over a long time period, as is to be expected with any currency. But there is another quite likely scenario that could occur. Some say that Bitcoin has only been so successful due to its first-to-market advantage, and that the supremacy of its competitors will be unearthed soon enough. I personally do not believe that any internet-based currency created today will have enough in it to take on the might of Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin itself’s security will not be able to measure up against quantum computing some day, although, as each separate cryptocurrency has standout features of their own, it is my belief that eventually a cryptocurrency shall be created to be that of the world, and hopefully it is adaptable enough, especially with advances in artificial intelligence forthcoming, to be able to stay relevant for a long time ahead.

                                                                                                               31 Popper, N., 2014. Into the Bitcoin Mines. [Online] Available at: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/into-the-bitcoin-mines/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1& [Accessed August 2014]. 32 Boveington-Fauran, D., 2014. An Inside Look At Cloudhashing.com’s Bitcoin Mining Datacentre In Iceland. [Online] Available at: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/inside-look-cloudhashing-coms-bitcoin-mining-datacentre-iceland/2014/05/23 [Accessed August 2014]. 33 Ruiter, J.d., 2014. Why The Bitcoin Price Is Going Down - CryptoCoinsNews. [Online] Available at: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/bitcoin-price-going/2014/07/30 [Accessed August 2014]. 34 Van Alstyne, M 2014, 'Why Bitcoin Has Value', Communications Of The ACM, 57, 5, p. 30, Advanced Placement Source, EBSCOhost, viewed 2 September 2014. 35 Coinbase, 2014. Bitcoin Charts - Coinbase. [Online] Available at: coinbase.com/charts [Accessed August 2014].

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Antibiotics: hero or villain?

By Hattie Bevan, U6 Ashmead

In this project, I aim to look at the variety of different antibiotics and the mechanisms by which they work, the benefits of using them in human medicine, and consider whether their use in livestock farming is beneficial to the environment or if it poses a threat to human life. In addition, as there are increasing concerns over the adverse consequences that antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria have, I will also look at the role that antibiotics play in the emergence of ‘superbugs’ (multi-drug resistant microorganisms). Antibiotics are chemicals that either destroy or inhibit the growth of microorganisms. It is no surprise, therefore, that when administered to patients suffering infections, that antibiotics currently save the lives of millions of people worldwide each year, and so can rightly be labelled ‘heroes’, as they have drastically changed the treatment of many infectious diseases. However, the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of antibiotics may be coming to an end, as the emergence of superbugs means that antibiotics are often no longer effective, posing a huge threat to human and animal life, and thus may be considered as ‘villains’, because antibiotics have accelerated the emergence of these superbugs. The first antibiotic was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. Often regarded as a careless scientist, Fleming was clearing away some petri dishes that had been left out for 2 weeks, and found that mould had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus dish. Curious, Fleming examined the mould and discovered that in the region that was contaminated with the mould, the staphylococcus bacteria had been dissolved, suggesting that the bacteria had undergone lysis, in which the bacteria cell walls are weakened, resulting in the bacteria bursting and dying. Fleming then conducted further experiments to back up these observations, and found that the antibacterial substance was not produced by all moulds, but only by certain strains of the Penicillium mould (notably Penicillium notatum), and, despite not being able to isolate the antibacterial substance, Fleming named it Penicillin 36 . He found that Penicillin only worked on certain species of bacteria, for example Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, and not on others such as B. typhosus and B. coli. He discovered that the bacteria which were most powerfully inhibited were some of those which cause common infections in humans37. It was not until 10 years after Fleming published his findings that intensive research was carried out on Penicillin, by Dr Florey and Dr Chain (both of whom received the Nobel Prize with Fleming in 1945), who demonstrated that penicillin could be used as an antibiotic to treat numerous bacterial diseases, and the first successful treatment using penicillin was in March 1942. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin not only helped (and continues to help) treat previously incurable infectious diseases, but it revolutionalised the way in which medicine is practised. Penicillin’s birth was during the time of World War II, during which it saved thousands of lives. In World War I (when penicillin was yet to be discovered) the death rate from bacterial pneumonia was 18%, and in World War II, penicillin helped this fall to less than 1%38. As a consequence, penicillin’s production increased rapidly

                                                                                                               36 http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/pharmaceuticals/preventing-and-treating-infectious-diseases/fleming.aspx 37 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1945/fleming-lecture.pdf 38 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/the-real-story-behind-the-worlds-first-antibiotic/

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during World War II, for example in the United States, production went from 21 billion units made in 1943, up to 1663 billion units in 1944 then up to over 6.8 trillion units of penicillin made in 194539. Today, penicillin makes up one of the 6 major antibiotic groups, and is most widely used to treat skin, chest and urinary tract infections. The other five antibiotic groups are cephalosporins, which are effective at treating serious infections such as meningitis, plus a wide range of infections; aminoglycosides, commonly only used for more serious infections such as septicaemia as they can have potentially serious side effects, such as kidney failure. The third group are tetracyclines, which are most commonly used to treat skin conditions such as moderate to severe acne; fourth are macrolides, most useful when treating lung and chest infections, and commonly used as alternatives to penicillin for people with a penicillin allergy or on penicillin-resistant strains of bacteria. The final group of antibiotics, described as broad spectrum, are called fluoroquinolones (and quinolones), used to treat a wide range of infections40. These 6 families only work in one of two ways: they either kill the bacteria directly (bactericidal); or they prevent the bacteria from multiplying, so that the antibodies and white blood cells in the immune system can kill the bacteria more quickly (bacteriostatic). The different families exert their effects by targeting different structures or processes in the bacterial cell. They can affect either cell wall structure, RNA and DNA function, or protein synthesis in the bacterium. All of these must be intact for the bacteria to survive and multiply. Therefore damage to these processes / structures either kills or halts the growth of bacteria. Both penicillin and cephalosporins are bactericidal, and interfere with the chemical processes that build the bacterial cell wall. Bacteria exposed to penicillin and cephalosporins produce a thinner cell wall in comparison to normal bacteria, as the antibiotics disrupt the production of the peptidoglycan layer of the cell walls. As these bacteria then divide by binary fission, they produce two daughter cells that have weakened cell walls too. As these daughter cells divide, the cell walls of the new daughter cells are subsequently so weak that these bacteria are killed by lysis41. This is because the cell walls can no longer control the entry of water into the bacterium (as can normal bacterial cell walls that have not been weakened), and so water moves into the bacterium by osmosis. The weakened cell wall cannot withstand the increase in pressure caused by the water entering the bacterium, and so the cell wall breaks, killing the bacterium. Aminoglycosides can either be bactericidal or bacteriostatic, depending on their concentration in the human or animal, killing or preventing growth of bacteria by interfering with protein synthesis. Aminoglycosides do this by binding to the bacteria’s ribosomes, one of the intracellular components of a cell, which carry out translation. Translation is the process whereby messenger RNA (mRNA) is decoded to produce the specific sequence of amino acids in the polypeptide chain, which ultimately makes up a protein. Bacteria, along with all prokaryotic organisms, have 70S ribosomes, consisting of 2 subunits: one small (30S) and one large (50S)42. Aminoglycosides work by binding to the 30S subunit, causing incorrect translation, resulting in erroneous amino acids being synthesised43.

                                                                                                               39 http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html#wwii-penicillin-commercial-production 40 http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Antibiotics-penicillins/Pages/Introduction.aspx 41 http://www.typesofbacteria.co.uk/how-antibiotics-work.html 42 http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary /Ribosomes 43 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aminoglycoside

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These erroneous amino acids will cause hydrogen bonds, disulfide bridges, hydrophobic interactions and ionic bonds to form at different places along the polypeptide chain, causing a different tertiary structure of the protein. This may result in the protein becoming dysfunctional, and thus the bacteria is unable to synthesise vital proteins, causing either its growth to be halted (bacteriostatic) or for the bacteria to be killed (bactericidal). Tetracylines are the other category of antibiotics which bind to the 30S subunit of the bacteria’s ribosomes, inhibiting certain stages of protein synthesis, resulting in faulty proteins or proteins not being synthesised in the first place, either killing the bacterium, or preventing it from multiplying. Tetracyclines can also act by altering the structure of the cytoplasmic membrane, resulting in vital compounds being released from the cell44 and hence causing death. It is not only the 30S subunit that is attacked by antibiotics: the 50S subunit is targeted by macrolides. Macrolides bind irreversibly to the 50S subunit, inhibiting protein synthesis. They do this by inhibiting the translation of mRNA, therefore the bacterium is unable to synthesise proteins, and so is either killed or prevented from replicating, depending on the dosage and the type of macrolide45. Fluouroquinolones and quinolones are bactericidal, and kill bacteria by interfering with DNA synthesis. They inhibit the bacterial gryrase enzyme, which is a key enzyme during DNA synthesis, thus inhibiting the replication of DNA, meaning that the affected bacteria are unable to replicate, and die within a few hours46. The (fluouro)quinolones are particularly useful for treating bacteria that penetrate within cells because they enter human/animal cells very easily, and are completely non-toxic because DNA gryrase is only present in bacterial cells, thus does not harm human/animal cells47. The great variety of chemical and biological mechanisms of antibiotics means that they are used to treat a wide variety of human and animal infections, from pneumonia and meningitis, to tuberculosis and infected wounds. Antibiotics should therefore be regarded as ‘heroes’ due to the countless lives they have saved during their relatively short existence – before antibiotics were discovered, 43% of deaths in the UK were from infections, and now, with the help of antibiotics, it has decreased to 7%48. There was a quote made by William Stewart, the Surgeon General of the United States of America in 1967 who said ‘The time has come to close the book on infectious diseases. We have basically wiped out infection in the United States”49. Other than saving lives by treating infections, antibiotics are used in the farming industry (just under 50% of all those produced50) predominantly in order to maximise feed conversion capability (these are called growth-promoting antibiotics), meaning that less feed is needed to produce the same gain in mass in the livestock. This is because the efficiency of an animal’s digestive system is dependent upon the microorganisms (i.e. bacteria) that live in the gut, some of which improve digestion and some that hinder it.

                                                                                                               44 http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/tetracycline/antimicr.htm 45 http://www.drugs.com/drug-class/macrolides.html 46 http://www.uic.edu/pharmacy/courses/pmpr342/itokazu/quinolones.html 47 http://www.typesofbacteria.co.uk/how-antibiotics-work.html 48 http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/antibiotic-resistance/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+compassioninfoodbusiness+(Compassion+in+Food+Business) 49 http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/8/08-056242/en/ 50 http://www.soilassociation.org/antibiotics

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The use of growth-promoting antibiotics, administered to the livestock in their feed, helps to rid the gut of the microorganisms that hinder digestion, helping the animals’ intestine to absorb more nutrients and water so that the animals get the most out of their food and subsequently grow more effectively than if they had not received the antibiotics51. The use of such antibiotics also means that an animal is less likely to suffer from intestinal upset, improving animal health and well-being, resulting in fewer animals being unable to be used for meat, milk etc., ultimately bringing better-priced meats to the supermarket shelves. In addition, growth-promoting antibiotics in animal populations have multiple benefits on the environment. A key environmental concern over the past decade or so has been the rate of global warming and the adverse affects it is mostly likely to have in the future, such as rising sea levels and more extreme climatic conditions (e.g. drought, flooding or tropical storms). The cause of global warming is most commonly accepted to be due to the rising levels of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and nitrous oxide) and so efforts to try to minimise the release of such gases into the atmosphere are widely encouraged. The use of the growth-promoting antibiotics helps the animals’ intestines to be healthier, and thus produce less waste gases into the air. Research has estimated that animals given growth-promoting antibiotics excrete 15% less methane – it is calculated that cattle given the growth-promoting antibiotics in France, Germany and the UK excrete 1,246 million cubic metres less methane per day in comparison to the cattle not given the antibiotics in these three countries52. Global population growth, and feeding the growing population, are ongoing problems, with the global population set to rise from 7.26 billion to 9.6 billion in 201553. Arable food production is the focus of much scientific research, with genetic modification of crops an interest area. Growth-promoting antibiotic use may complement this, as, by using them, we are able to cut down on the amount of livestock feed that needs to be grown, because the livestock being fed these antibiotics will need less food in order to grow at the same rate. This means that less land is taken up to grow feed for livestock, and more land can be used to grow crops that will be eaten by humans. For example, one paper calculated that 8 million pigs fed growth-promoting antibiotics would require 70,000 tonnes less feed during the fattening stage than 8 million pigs not consuming the antibiotics54. In 2012, there were calculated to be around 966 million pigs worldwide55, so feeding all of these pigs with growth-promoting antibiotics (assuming that they are all grown as livestock to be eaten) would save around 8.45 trillion tonnes of feed per year. The excess land can therefore be used to grow crops for humans, helping to combat the issue of feeding an ever-increasing population. Animal waste/manure is another difficult issue surrounding livestock farming as it currently utilises a vast amount of land. Because growth-promoting antibiotics improve the efficiency of digestion, the animals excrete much smaller amounts of faeces. One paper estimated that the use of such antibiotics in the EU in pigs reduced the amount of waste manure per year by 7 million cubic meters, the equivalent to 3,500 Olympic sized swimming pools56. This means that the land that would otherwise be used to dispose of livestock manure can be put to better use, such as using it to grow food for humans in order to accommodate for the growing population as I explained above.                                                                                                                51 http://www.noah.co.uk/issues/briefingdoc/07-envir.htm 52 See 15 53 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45165#.U_Sgll6GvnY 54 See 15 55 http://www.statista.com/statistics/263963/number-of-pigs-worldwide-since-1990/ 56 See 15

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All this is well and good when antibiotics are effective at killing the bacteria, however, there are increasing global concerns about the damage that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria could have in the future. Many science experts say that we are heading for a ‘post-antibiotic era’ in which almost all of our current antibiotics will no longer work, and people could possibly die from minor infections such as those caused by small wounds, as the bacteria will not be killed by antibiotics. Over recent years, the dangers of antibiotic resistance have begun to make the news headlines, for example “Antibiotic resistance ‘as big a risk as terrorism’”57, “Antibiotic crisis bigger than Aids”58 and “Antibiotic-resistant diseases pose ‘apocalyptic’ threat”59. Antibiotic resistance is the resistance of a microorganism to an antibiotic drug that was originally effective in treatment of the infection. Naturally, as microorganisms such as bacteria replicate, mutations can arise in their DNA resulting in some of the bacteria having a gene producing a protein which is able to kill or prevent the antibiotic from killing itself, resulting in that bacterium becoming resistant to a certain antibiotic. Antibiotics do not cause antibiotic resistance per se, because the bacteria (in the absence of antibiotics) will replicate and divide, with mutations arising. However, the process of new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria arising is accelerated in the presence of antibiotics, as explained by the phenomenon of natural selection. Because of mutations in DNA that arise during replication, within a given bacterial population there will be numerous different alleles (versions of the same gene). When exposed to antibiotics, the bacteria with the allele for antibiotic resistance will survive, and those without (the vast majority of the bacterial population) will be killed or prevented from replicating (depending on whether the antibiotic was bactericidal or bacteriostatic). As time goes by, with the bacterial population in the presence of the antibiotic, only the bacteria with the antibiotic resistant allele will replicate, and thus the frequency of the allele will increase within the bacterial population, and after some time the entire (well the vast majority) of the bacterial population will carry the antibiotic resistant allele. This means that the original antibiotic will no longer work on this bacterial population, and therefore the bacteria will continue to cause harm to the infected individual. There are two main routes by which genetic material, and hence resistance, is transferred between bacteria: vertical or horizontal. Vertical gene transmission occurs during bacterial replication (as discussed above), involving the transfer of genetic material from one generation to the next, during which the original bacterium divides by binary fission to produce two daughter cells. These daughter cells therefore have the same alleles (versions of a gene) as the original bacterium, and hence will be resistant to a given antibiotic if the original bacterium was. Horizontal gene transmission takes place between members of the same generation, and can occur in 3 different ways: conjugation, transduction and transformation, and is particularly dangerous in an antibiotic-resistant sense, as antibiotic resistant alleles can pass between members of different bacterial species.

                                                                                                               57 BBC News, 11/03/13 58 The Telegraph, 30/04/14 59 The Guardian, 23/01/13

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In conjugation, the donor cell replicates the plasmid that contains the antibiotic resistant allele (or can carry more than one antibiotic resistant gene – these are of special concern medically) and extends a pilus (conjugation tube), connecting the donor cell to the recipient cell. The replicated plasmid then passes through the pilus into the recipient cell, meaning that now both the donor and recipient cells are now resistant to the antibiotic to which the donor cell was originally resistant. The second way that DNA is passed from one bacterium to another is by transduction, where a virus transfers the DNA between the bacteria. This occurs when a virus infects the bacterium containing the antibiotic-resistant allele. The virus then transfers some of the donor cell’s DNA, containing the gene responsible for antibiotic-resistance, from the donor cell and into the recipient cell, where it is either inserted into the recipient cell’s chromosome, or reforms into a plasmid if the DNA was originally a plasmid60. The third mechanism of exchanging DNA between bacterial cells is transformation, which is when the donor cell secretes some of its DNA out of the cell, some of which is the antibiotic-resistant allele, and the recipient bacterium takes up this extracellular donor DNA61. The cell takes up the DNA in the same way as in transduction, either reforming into a plasmid or joins to the recipient cell’s chromosome. Fleming realised that antibiotic resistance could and would be a problem of the future when he discovered penicillin, stating the dangers associated with under-dosing on antibiotics or not finishing the antibiotic course – “there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily under-dose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant”62. Fleming warned the world about the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, with the first recorded bacterium being resistant to penicillin in 194763, just 5 years after the first successful human treatment with penicillin. Nowadays, 70% of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, including resistance to the antibiotics used as a last resort. In many cases the bacteria are resistant to more than one type of antibiotic, called multi drug resistant bacteria, commonly known as ‘superbugs’. One such superbug is MRSA (methicillin-reistant staphylococcus aureus) which is of huge concern, with one paper estimating that in the USA over 80,000 people are infected with MRSA each year, leading to over 11,000 deaths per annum. MRSA causes a variety of illnesses, from skin infections through to life threatening blood infections (sepsis)64. Recently, reports of sepsis being unable to be treated by antibiotics have reached the national UK news. It has been estimated that sepsis causes around 37,000 deaths each year in the UK - a higher mortality than that of lung or bowel cancer. Treating antibiotic resistance is a significant expense around the world. Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is an example of a superbug of global concern. Globally, 3.6% of new TB cases and 20.2% of previously treated cases are estimated to be MDR-TB, according to the 2014 WHO (World Health Organization) report on antimicrobial resistance. Across the WHO regions, only 48% of patients infected by MDR-TB, starting treatment in 2010, were cured upon completion of the antibiotic course. In Europe alone, 2011 saw the infection of 35,000 people with MDR-TB, an increase six times greater than that of previous years. Because the MDR-TB are resistant to multiple antibiotics, a variety of different antibiotics are used during treatment. Therefore it is very expensive to treat, costing between £50,000-£100,000 per patient over the 2 year antibiotic course65. That means that each year in Europe we spend roughly around £2.6 billion on the treatment of MDR-TB. This is a huge sum of money that may be difficult for                                                                                                                60 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transduction_(genetics) 61 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7908/ 62 See 2 63 http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/antibiotic_resistance.htm 64 http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/pdf/ar-threats-2013-508.pdf#page=13 65 See 13

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some governments to afford in the future. For example, it is estimated that the overall impact of antimicrobial resistance (antibiotic resistance plus the resistance to other microorganisms, such as viruses, e.g. HIV) in the UK is costing the economy £10 billion each year66, which is estimated to be just over 10% of the entire NHS budget. Clearly, a solution to prevent the damage to the economy relating to the treatment of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria would be to produce new drugs to kill these superbugs. However, over recent decades, large pharmaceutical companies have pulled out of antibiotic development in order to focus development on chronic conditions, such as diabetes. It is because of this that new classes of antibiotics are being developed increasingly slowly. Between 1935 and 1968 there were 14 different classes of antibiotics developed. However since 1968, only 5 new classes of antibiotics have been developed, none of which have been developed since 1987. This seems to relate to the mechanisms of drug discovery. With most of the more simple antibiotic structures already known, companies have had to invest more time and money into formulating and synthesizing new compounds. On average, it is estimated to take 12 years from the time that a company begins researching to the time that the drug is available to use in patients. One source67 suggests that 10,000 compounds are tested in the first phase of drug discovery, of which fewer that 250 reach preclinical trials (testing in labs and on animals). From this point, fewer than 5 compounds then reach clinical trials (testing on humans), of which health authorities only approve one drug. This entire process has been estimated to cost at least 4 billion dollars. It is for these reasons that large pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to spend that much time and money producing an antibiotic that may then be useless within a couple of years due to the emergence of new resistant strains of bacteria. Fleming warned, that the misuse of antibiotics would result in the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains in the future, and this is exactly what has happened. A Health Protection Agency survey found that a quarter of people prescribed antibiotics do not complete their course, and possibly more alarming are the results from a Welsh study, finding that approximately 1.6 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions were made each year in the UK. Not finishing your antibiotic course increases risk because some of the bacteria causing infection will survive, and these will be the ones with the greatest resistance to the antibiotic. These bacteria will reproduce and pass on their resistant genes both vertically and horizontally, meaning that the infection would not be able to be treated with the same antibiotic. If the infection was then passed to someone else, they too could not be treated using the original antibiotic, and so on. Unnecessarily prescribing antibiotics is potentially harmful because it increases the likelihood that natural selection will favour the resistant strain of the microorganism. However, it is not just misuse in human medicine that is a contributing factor in the emergence of superbugs, as antibiotics are used in the farming industry too. Despite the many apparent benefits that I explained earlier, scientists have been able to find very clear links between antibiotic use in farming and resistance in humans. For example, in humans the biggest source of the resistant strains of salmonella and campylobacter bacteria is transmission from livestock68. Resistant strains of bacteria (along with all types of bacteria) can transfer from livestock to humans through the meat and eggs that we buy, and without proper cooking these bacteria will not be killed, and thus cause infection in humans that is untreatable by many antibiotics.

                                                                                                               66 See 13 67 http://www.bayerpharma.com/en/research-and-development/processes/index.php 68http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=G9q4uEb5deI%3d&tabid=1841

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In my opinion, I see antibiotics as ‘heroes’. This is because they have offered medicine a period in history within which the vast majority of infectious diseases have been able to be treated, thus prolonging the lives of millions. Antibiotics have a wide range of uses within medicine, from preventing cancer patients with weakened immune systems from catching infections to preventing infection in wounds after surgery, allowing for safe hip replacements, caesarean sections, organ replacements and such like. On top of this, antibiotics have also had benefited the environment due to use in livestock farming, helping to maximize the feed conversion capability in livestock. Yes, antibiotics have helped give antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria a selective advantage over non-resistant strains, and so have been responsible for millions of deaths, and attempts to treat such infections costing countries economies billions of pounds each year, but without antibiotics these mutations would still have arisen, and thus superbugs would still have emerged. As Laura Piddock, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Birmingham, so rightly states, ‘bacteria are older, wiser and cleverer than us’, and so will continue to evolve and become resistant to antibiotics. This is why I believe that antibiotics are a temporary solution to infectious diseases and that for us to completely ‘wipe out infection’, as William Stewart so naively pronounced in 1967, we need to find a permanent solution that can withstand rapidly-mutating bacteria. Antibiotics are not the answer, but surely are ‘heroes’ due to the drastic changes they have brought about both in medicine and farming within their relatively short existence.

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Was Alfred the Great great? National competition entry

By Archie Charlton, U6 Newick House

Alfred became the only King of the English, or English-speaking peoples, to be given the enduring epithet ‘The Great’. He was a 9th century West Saxon King, born in 849. As the youngest of five sons, his youth meant that Alfred seemed unlikely to succeed to the throne. Pope Leo’s anointment of Alfred, the fifth son, as King whilst still an infant did, however, come true. Alfred could arguably be called ‘Great’ due to his military skill and his revolutionary approach to warfare in general, overcoming his natural, physical weaknesses and using strategy and technology to defeat a great foe. As a part of this, his fortification of the burghs effectively led to political dominance of Britain, which was then further enhanced by the economic benefits he delivered. Relative economic and physical security permitted a cultural flowering under Alfred, centred on religious establishments, many of which remain today. This facilitated the growth of scholarship, for which Alfred had a great passion. To define our terms still further, whilst there have been no other British monarchs given the epithet ‘Great’, there have been monarchs from other nations afforded it. Alexander the Great gained the sobriquet, but whilst Alexander created a great empire he was accused of neglecting his civil duties. Another leader who is at times known as ‘great’ was Pope John Paul the Second, who through peaceful means defeated many of the biggest enemies of the free world. He has been credited with playing a part in the downfall of Augusto Pinochet, ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier and even the Soviet Union. It appears then that whilst many people given the title ‘The Great’ attain it through warmongering and conquering, there is also a distinct possibility of gaining it via peaceful means. The historian Thomas Carlyle69 sees a great man as someone who has a ‘great’ effect on history, as developed in ‘On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History’. Thus, ‘Great Man theory’ does not necessitate goodness or justness for someone to be classified as ‘great’. Napoleon, who manipulated a huge society and state simply for personal vainglory, on balance cannot be called good, however he was undeniably great. Alfred, similarly, had less redeeming features: he was overbearingly religious and was weakened by a debilitative illness. However, even taking into account these weaknesses, Alfred’s impact was huge, largely in a positive sense, therefore by any count, Alfred can be seen as truly great. During the second half of the 9th century a group of Danes, Norsemen, Frisians and even some Saxons went viking in Britain, especially the North. The word Viking does not, as many people think, mean the group of marauders but rather to actually be a pirate. The Norse verb Vikr essentially means to go on an expedition, with connotations of raiding and pillaging. They later invaded and tried to conquer Britain, with the “Great Heathen Army” that landed in the kingdom of East Anglia in 86570. It is hard accurately to assess the size of this great force however, the most conservative estimates are, that the army numbered around a thousand soldiers, still a great force at the time. It is hard to put a figure on troop numbers due to the contrasting sources. One can guess at the size of the force by using the number of boats that the Vikings sailed in, however it is difficult to know quite how large these boats were, whether all of the sailors were troops or whether some boats may have been lost on the voyage over. Whilst the exact                                                                                                                69 http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/great-man-theory-of-leadership.html 70 Swanton, M. (Translated and edited, 1996) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, J.M Dent P68-69

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number of troops is disputed, Peter Sawyer is “tempted to suppose that it comprised perhaps two or three thousand men71.” During Alfred’s reign the Vikings were the main threat to Wessex. It may have appeared that the sickly and weak Alfred was unable to live up to being a traditional warrior king, who led from the front and set an example for his warriors in combat. Alfred is believed to have had a form of Crohn’s disease72 or colitis, a group of debilitative diseases. This would have been draining and caused Alfred to be relatively weak to many of the warriors who surrounded him. Alfred however used his intellect to fight his wars. Alfred devised an intelligent plan to counter the strengths of the Danes and to accentuate the strengths of his own Saxon war machine. The Saxon army was formed from two distinct bodies: the Household warriors; and the levies known as the Fyrd. A lord’s household warriors were essentially his own standing army, small but expert. The Household warriors were almost equal to the Vikings in terms of combat, however they were limited in size, this was due to their nature, essentially kept on a retainer by their Lord. They were paid to protect their Lord and his interests. The Fyrd, however, differed from the Household warriors. Every able man of fighting age, a huge qualification at the time that could range from the age of 10-70, outside of the clergy, was technically in the Fyrd and, when called to the Fyrd, had to stop what they were doing and assemble, for their Lord to lead them to battle. The Fyrd were not warriors, they were mainly farmers or craftsmen, usually armed with the tools of the trade such as scythes or wood-axes with little armour. The Fyrd could hold their own in defence and in a brawl but were often found lacking in organised attack. They often broke in the shield wall and were quick to flee. Alfred recognised that the two main Saxon strengths were in defence, using their shield wall or manning walls and an advantage of numbers, which they often had. The Vikings were elite troops to a man, however there were often few of them compared to the Saxons. Whilst trying to fight to his strengths, Alfred also tried to surprise the Vikings with a new weapon that he developed to attempt to beat them at their own game. Alfred attempted to develop a navy. Alfred knew that the Danes learnt to sail a ship in their formative years and that it was unlikely that his men could outsail them. Alfred instead had a small fleet of boats built that were much larger than those of the Vikings, which enabled them to be packed with many more fighting men than the Viking ships. This numerical and size advantage allowed the Saxon boats to often win the day when it came to ramming and as a result boarding, as was the custom. The current Royal Navy even partially accredit Alfred as being “founder of the navy”73. Alfred also revolutionised the Saxon form of warfare. Previously the Saxons had tried to match the Vikings and face them head on in a shield wall, which was often their undoing. Alfred however aimed to utilise the Saxon strengths in defence and the traditional Viking weakness in siege, to defend his Kingdom. The Vikings were often found lacking in sieges as their army’s happiness relied on the amount of plunder being found. This meant that lengthy sieges often lead to a breakdown in the Viking armies. Also as they had usually travelled across the sea from Scandinavia, the Vikings rarely had siege equipment or engineers capable of making it with them. A combination of these two factors resulted in Viking warlords ‘pulling the last punch’ if it involved siege warfare. Later in his reign Alfred constructed a great system of burghs, whereby he fortified some of the biggest and most strategic towns and cities of his realm, using an inconsistent standard of four or five men for every pole of wall, which was approximately a man

                                                                                                               71 Sawyer P. (Written 1997) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press, 1997 P54 72 Horspool D. (2006) King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends, Harvard University Press P154 73 http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/About-the-Royal-Navy/Organisation/Life-in-the-Royal-Navy/History/Historic-Periods/Earliest-Times-to-1509

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every one hundred and twenty centimetres. However this allocation was not solely for when in danger, to man the walls, it was also used for the maintenance of this wall section. Whilst the troops manning the walls were from the Fyrd, with these numbers and taking into account the Fyrd’s relative strength in defence, it was thought that this facilitated a fearsome defence. This fearsome defence was enabled by the strengths of the burghs themselves. Burghs had walls, palisades and ditches as well as effective bridges to block rivers, if the burgh was built on one. The burghs were also constructed so that the surrounding population of the countryside could retreat inside and keep their livestock and valuables safe whilst the marauders were outside. The combined strength of the burghs, the strength of the unified Saxon army and the withdrawal of valuables from the countryside meant that Viking raids often floundered and splintered into bands of brigands who could be easily overcome. These innovations in defensive warfare meant that over the intervening years, before the Norman conquest, the Saxons were able to hold their own against the Vikings and defend themselves adeptly. This was an aspect of Alfred’s kingship that was truly ‘great’. Alfred’s impact on the defence and subsequent conquest by politick of the United Kingdom can be exemplified by Asser’s introduction to his ‘life on King Alfred’ calling Alfred “Ruler of all the Christians on the island of Britain”74. Whilst in legal reality Alfred was not King of all the Christians in Britain, he had considerable influence over the Welsh and probably more influence over the Mercians than their supposed ruler Æthelred, these being the two other main groups of Christians in Britain at the time. Whilst it was not fully fortified, due to its size, Alfred greatly developed the technically Mercian London and could be said to have a big part in the city’s development into a great city. Burghs became the centres of Anglo-Saxon life and the continued success of these towns and cities, is not only because of the defences that helped to keep them intact, but also because of investment, both monetary and in terms of the population. Alfred would invest in the towns that were turned into burghs and give the people land inside the burgh. The gift of land gave the inhabitants the inclination to defend their town as they had a significant stake in the town and the monetary investment gave the usually self-armed Fyrd the ability to fight with more than an axe or sickle. Such improper armaments were often used before the Burghal system was implemented. It was not only those who lived inside the towns that benefitted from the Burghal system. People who lived in the countryside were able to retreat to the burghs and bring their valuable livestock and crops inside the walls. This was part of the strategy to starve invading Danes into submission. Alfred as King sought not only to develop his cities and towns as defensible settlements but also looked to try to develop his settlements as economic and cultural centres. The proximity of burghs to each other also enabled Alfred’s newly-developed mobile army to protect burghs and for the Fyrd of each burgh to help each other. Burghs were often quite large; Winchester, Wallingford and Warwick all commanded 2400 hides of land, giving them 2400 men to defend almost two miles of wall, which was just the size of the burgh inside the walls. With a size of almost a square mile, these burghs were not small and as such could hold the Danes outside and the occupants inside, fed for a long time.75 Alfred’s plans for city improvement can be exemplified by Winchester which was Alfred’s capital. Winchester, positioned reasonably centrally in Wessex, had a large cathedral and the royal court.

                                                                                                               74 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.67 75 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.193-4 (His body was however later moved)

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Whilst Winchester is not as big as some of the other burghs have become, it is still an important town in the South and an occasional spot for pilgrimage. Winchester’s importance is signified as it is also the traditional resting place of King Alfred 76 . The success of Alfred’s burghal system can perhaps be highlighted by the fact that many of the Anglo-Saxon burghs have become very important towns, including Southampton, Exeter, Bath and Worcester. There were, however, issues around the new society that Alfred was developing. The above point has to be qualified by the fact that there are also some relatively insignificant villages that have evolved from Anglo-Saxon burghs, such as Halwell, Burpham and Pilton. As well as this, there was an overbearing reliance on the Church that at times held him back. Most of Alfred’s main advisors were churchmen and he was superstitious when it came to war and believed that the only way to win in war was to be religious and to trust in God. Alfred believed earlier in his reign that the Vikings had been sent by God, as a punishment for previous immorality. This resulted in Alfred missing chances to reinforce his defences to keep the Danes out, instead improving morality and the Church to keep the Vikings away. Whilst understandable for the time, his moral absolutism and undying dedication to absolute rules, instead of looking at things pragmatically and at face value, can perhaps be criticised. It is though Alfred’s Christian moral strength that could be admired most, as contrary to many Kings and leaders of the time, he put the moral standing of his Kingdom ahead of any hedonistic indulgence, in stark contrast to the Vikings and most other Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time. Alfred’s devotion to the church can be shown by his bequest of 200 pounds and 500 mancuses, a sum of approximately 260 pounds, to the church and various bishops, for the Church’s general use. To put this sum into perspective, he gave his wife only 100 pounds in his will and the same amount for all of his daughters, so this donation can be seen as a truly colossal sum of money77. The discovery of the ‘Alfred Jewel’, a sumptuous jewel, which is believed to have been an æstel, a simple reading implement thought to have been sent, along with one of Alfred’s translations of Gregory’s ‘Pastoral Care’, to “each bishopric in my Kingdom”78. This lavish embellishment on such a simple tool for the Church is another example of the fact that Alfred would truly spare no expense when looking to improve the Church. The very thing that each æstel was accompanying, a translation of Gregory’s pastoral care, shows that Alfred was not frugal with the time of his learned men. The reproduction of a work such as Gregory’s Pastoral Care would have taken a lot of time and would have had to be done by a learned man, such as a priest, as well as some passages which he translated himself. The fact that Alfred was willing to give away so many of these precious works, shows that as well as financially, Alfred was generous with time when it came to the Church. Alfred saw education and the Church as being intertwined. Much of the teaching that those at his court school received was based around religion and many of the teachers were clergymen. These two areas which the King gave great importance to, aided each other greatly under Alfred’s rule, with priests being taught literacy not just for their work in the church but also so that they could help education across the Kingdom, often through teaching at the court school.

                                                                                                               76  http://winchester-cathedral.org.uk/history-treasures/our-history/ 77 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.177 78 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.205

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Whilst Alfred was of course, as King, a great presence at court and in the theatre of war, he had a multi-faceted personality, which stretched far beyond simple war and ruling. Alfred was in his younger years, and, if he had not lost his brothers to the Danes, would have stayed, “certainly a distinguished scholar”79, obsessed not with battle plans but books and the infancy of Science. Throughout his reign as King, Alfred sought to further learning and education. In Alfred’s own translation of ‘Gregory’s Pastoral Care’, a book by Pope Gregory the Great from around 590, the King says: “Learning had declined so thoroughly that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English, or even translate a single letter from Latin into English... so few of them that I can recollect even a single one south of the Thames when I succeeded to the Kingdom”80. This damning assessment of learning in Britain at the time shows not only how poor scholarship was at the time but how seriously Alfred took learning. Alfred set up a court school for mainly the sons (although some daughters were included) of his noblemen and “a good many of lesser birth", who were recognised for their intellectual prowess. The children at this court school would learn writing and Latin mainly, with a wider education, that focussed on Christianity as well. It can be shown how seriously Alfred took this school and learning in general by his recruitment of various scholars from Europe as well as Britain such as Plegmund, Grimbald and John the Saxon81. As well as his pursuit of learning through the Court School and wider learning for the young, Alfred recognised the fact that there was a need for translations of the most essential texts and commissioned translations of “certain books which are the most necessary for all men to know”. Alfred ordered his Bishops to do most of the translations as well as doing some himself. Alfred recognised the need for order to the day and as such looked for an opportunity to measure the passing of the day. Alfred, recognised the constant and regular burning of candles as a way that time could be quantified. Alfred borrowed the idea of a twenty four hour day or a twelve hour half day, from Roman sun dials and set about finding a way that he could find candles that burnt regularly for exactly twenty four hours. Alfred’s dedication to education as well as to his family can be shown by his intense desire for his family to become engrossed in the Saxon court school. This desire for his children to become educated can be shown by the fact that Alfred’s second daughter Æthelgifu became the Abbess of Shaftesbury; this was a position that required great learning. Alfred was a great family man. He managed to take time out from being King, of course an extremely taxing pursuit, to spend with his family, upon whom he doted. Alfred had two sons and three daughters, most notably his oldest child, daughter Ætheflæd, who married the Chief Earldorman of Mercia, Æthelred, and became known as the ‘Lady of the Mercians’ and of course his heir Edward ‘the Elder’. Alfred was liberal for the times, in terms of gender recognition. Alfred recognised, in his will, that “My grandfather had bequeathed his land on the spear side and not on the spindle side”, meaning that lands had been given to the male side, sons and brothers, as opposed to the female members of the family. Alfred changed this and gave land to his daughters generously; “to my eldest daughter the estate at Wellow (although as ‘lady of the Mercians’ she already had lots of land), to the middle that at Kingsclere and at Candover, and to the youngest the estate at Wellow (this estate a different one, on the Isle of Wight), at Ashton and at Chippenham”82. All of those estates were sizable

                                                                                                               79 Webster, L. & Backhouse, J., eds. (1991)The Making of England: Anglo Saxon Art Culture British Museum Press: London 80 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.125 81 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.192  82 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.175-177

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bequests and Alfred even gave “to Ealhswith (his wife) the estate at Lambourn, at Wantage and at Edington”. This was not in line with tradition and showed that often, outside of the Church and religion, Alfred was willing to break convention for what he thought was right and just. Alfred was clearly a great leader, who struggled against near impossible odds to save his Kingdom and then revolutionised defense and society as a whole to stop it from being invaded again, setting the foundations for a modern England and United Kingdom that would become a world power for over a thousand years. Alfred was also well renowned for his wisdom, to a level that he is often, wrongly, accredited with founding Oxford University. Many contemporary writers and historians to the time are effusive in their praise of King Alfred. Asser’s reverence for Alfred is clear in his ‘Life of King Alfred’ and a foreigner in Alfred’s entourage, possibly John the Old Saxon, virtually compares him to Christ in his acrostic poem to Christ but partially addressed to Alfred83. Whilst it is hard to agree with Edward Freeman’s acclamation of Alfred as the “most perfect character in history”84, he could however be described as the most perfect character in Britain’s early history or perhaps the whole history of the whole British isles. Taking Carlyle’s definition of someone being great as them having a significant impact on history, Alfred deserves to be called great. Alfred’s impact on history can perhaps finally be exemplified by a poem written, nearly a thousand years after his death, to match his famous statue in Wantage, made by Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg: Alfred found learning dead And he restored it; Education neglected And he revived it; The laws powerless And he gave them force; The church debased And he raised it; The land ravaged by a fearful enemy From which he delivered it; Alfred’s name will live as long As mankind shall respect the past.

                                                                                                               83 Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M. (translated, 1983) Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, London: Penguin, p.192 84 Freeman, E. 1867-79 The History of the Norman Conquest of England  

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To what extent does Jupiter have greater control over fate in Virgil’s Aeneid than in Ovid’s Metamorphoses?85

By Alexander Hall, U6 Leconfield

During the reign of the Emperor Augustus Caesar from 27BC to 14AD86, Roman society underwent the greatest upheaval in its history. After years of civil war under the republic, the change to an empire with Augustus as emperor coincided with a period of peace amongst civilians and thus prosperity in society. It is no surprise that in this period, literature flourished under the watchful eye of Augustus. With his support, authors such as Horace, Livy, Tibullus and Propertius as well as Virgil and Ovid enjoyed what is well known as the golden age of Roman literature. Throughout both the Aeneid and Metamorphoses there is a huge reliance on Jupiter’s portrayal and his control over fate. The modern idea of fate is ‘ a development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as pre-determined by a supernatural power.’87 A modern reader would thus determine that surely, with Jupiter being the most powerful of those holders of the supernatural powers, the gods, he would surely be in control of this fate? However this would be ignoring the Fates, the three goddesses: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. These goddesses were said in ancient culture to be in control of life and death, which they achieved by thinking of each person as a spindle, and spinning the fate of each person. The goddesses were even said to be able to contradict the powers of the gods. However do Ovid’s and Virgil’s characterisations of Jupiter portray him as having as much control of fate as these three goddesses?88 Whilst the Aeneid and Metamorphoses are both written in epic metre, the two authors write them in very different styles, attempting to achieve different goals.89 Virgil decided to write in a Homeric style, with his opening line clearly imitating both the Iliad and the Odyssey90.“Arma virumque cano”(I sing of arms and a man). The reference to war echoes the start of the Iliad, and his use of ‘virumque’ (man) mirrors the opening word of the Odyssey, “ἄνδρα”(man), making it clear that Virgil sets out to write a ‘conventional, Hellenic-style’ epic. Ovid, on the other hand, writes in a much more contemporary style, intertwining myths and bringing together a huge array of stories – a sort of hybrid poem. It has been said that the metre was ‘often only elegiac couplets in disguise’,91 a sentiment echoed by Wilkinson92. Many have attempted to interpret the subject of Ovid’s epic: from the idea of an ‘anti-epic protest’93, to ‘an epic of rape.’94 To my mind, Ovid must have wanted his association with Virgil, (his predecessor under Augustus) widely considered the greatest of all Roman poets. Not only did he switch to hexameter, casting aside his usual

                                                                                                               85 All translations for Metamorphoses are Penguin Classics, David Raeburn and Aeneid by David West. 86 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Augustus 87 Oxford English Dictionary, definition of Fate. 88 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/42875/Augustan-Age 89 Ovid J.W.Binns 116 90 Aeneid Virgil, translation by David West, xi 91 Greek Byways T.R.Glover 191. 92 Ovid Recalled L.P.Wilkinson 150. 93 Structure and Intention in the Metamorphoses R.G.G Coleman 461- 94 477Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorposes C.P.Segal 51-52

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elegiac couplet, but also described his work as unfinished95, just as Virgil did with the Aeneid. While it could be said that this is Ovid’s typical irony and humour showing through96, he no doubt feels that he should be considered in the same bracket after the writing of his masterpiece. However, while acknowledging (and imitating) Virgil's stylistic leadership, Ovid paints a subtly different picture of Jupiter as a more flawed power, with mortal weaknesses, possibly appealing more to contemporary readers. Introduction to Jupiter In Book 1 of both epics, the poets attempt to give Jupiter an initial image of huge control and omnipotence. In Metamorphoses, the first image the reader gains of Jupiter is one of grandeur. The reader sees an image of Jupiter in Olympus, throwing down his thunderbolts to destroy the giants; this is quickly followed by Jupiter’s description of power in the heavens. “Jove enthroned on a dais and clutching his ivory spear.” The sense of grandeur corresponds with a more Iliadic description of Jupiter, as an omnipotent king, one who is a guardian responsible not only for mortals, but also the immortals.97 This can be compared with the first portrayal of Jupiter in the Aeneid, where he is described as simply clearing the skies with his smile. Meanwhile the use of his epithet “Hominum sator atque deorum” (Father of men and gods) signifies his power over both of the aforementioned groups. After this initial introduction, the passages show great contrasts in the writers’ ideas. Virgil’s Jupiter delivers possibly the greatest indicator of his power over fate, whilst trying to reassure Venus of his greatness.

“Parce metu, Cytherea: manent immota tuorum fata tibi; cernes urbem et promissa Lavini moenia, sublimemque feres ad sidera caeli magnanimum Aenean; neque me sententia vertit. Hic tibi (fabor enim, quando haec te cura remordet, longius et volvens fatorum arcana movebo)” 98 (“Spare yourself these fears, my lady from Cytherea. You can be sure that the destiny of your descendants remains unchanged. You will see the great city of Lavinium and it’s promised walls. You will see great-hearted Aeneas up to the stars of heaven. No argument changes my mind. But now since this anxiety is gnawing at you, I shall tell you more, unrolling for you the secrets of the scroll of fates.”)

Jupiter continually assures her that these things will happen, which is reflected in the continued use of the future tense, thus implying that Jupiter knows that these things are for certain and there is no concern for Venus regarding Aeneas’ destiny. Furthermore, this in turn reveals a unique standpoint for Jupiter, and a question in turn for the reader. Is it that Jupiter controls fate and thus can so confidently say these things, or is it that Jupiter himself does not control these things, but read the scroll of the Fates so he knows exactly what is awaiting for Aeneas in the future? A sceptic would suggest that Jupiter is little more than an interpreter for the Fates. However, one must not ignore the fact that Jupiter, alone amongst the gods, is able to interpret this fate. Thus, while it appears that Virgil has created the Fates to be the official and revered creators of fate, Jupiter clearly has huge influence over fortune as well. This

                                                                                                               95 Tristia Ovid 1.7 96 Aeneid Virgil, D.West xix 97 Jupiter in Ovid’s Metamorphoses C.P.Segal 79 98 Aeneid (1. 257-262)

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idea is supported as Jupiter states, “imperium sine fine dedi” (I have given an empire that will know no end). This in turn gives the reader a small insight into the huge power that he possesses, and his certainty of future success implies that he is controlling the fate of this empire. By contrast Ovid’s initial portrayal of Jupiter in the Metamorphoses is changed when Jupiter feels the compulsion to send down an almighty flood and fire. This was because he felt man had become poisoned, since the moment when he had stayed at Lycaon’s abode in the form of a mortal, Lycaon had attempted his murder:

“Nec caelo contenta suo est Iovis ira, sed illum caeruleus frater iuvat auxiliaribus undis” 99 (“Jupiter’s anger did not stop short in the sky, his own kingdom; Neptune the sea god deployed his water to aid his brother”)

The almighty rage of Jupiter shows that the whole world is at his command; he can easily control the fate of the world with his power, and as easily can enlist the help of his fellow gods to carry through his work. The fates did predict this (1.256-258), but Jupiter chose the timing of this deluge, suggesting that while the Fates choose the final destination of fate, Jupiter controls when, where and how long it takes to happen. This control makes it possible to argue that in the Metamorphoses Jupiter has a greater grasp of an individual’s fate at this stage than in the Aeneid. Jupiter the lover In the Metamorphoses, once Jupiter has escaped the shackles of Iliadic Zeus, he partakes in several rapes portraying him as a deceitful character, thus showing him in a very different light from the portrayal by Virgil. Firstly with his rape of Io, it is said “Jupiter, throwing a mantle of darkness over the wide world, halted the flight of the runaway nymph and stealthily raped her.” By using his wide array of powers, Ovid displays a mortal weakness in Jupiter that is not evident in Virgil’s Aeneid. This weakness becomes especially prominent during his pursuit of women, as Jupiter is most unable to manipulate fate to his own personal advantage. Jupiter, as a consequence, changes Io into a cow in order to hide his infidelity from Juno. However, when she discovers that his lover is a cow, she is enraged and thus places Argus as a guard. This highlights Jupiter not as the, ‘pater omnipotens’, but rather as a mortal, a helpless husband subject to the wrath of his wife, in a predicament having lost control of the fate of his lover. The loss of the control is not by choice, as his attempts to conceal his crime suggest that Jupiter does indeed care about the fate of his adulteress, but that he is unable to help her. This is the first time that Ovid suggests that fate is not solely at Jupiter’s own discretion. Furthermore, Jupiter employed trickery in order to win over Callisto. By taking the form of Diana, Jupiter tricked Callisto into being intimate with him before she realised that it was not Diana, but Jupiter himself. When Diana realised that the chastity of her attendant had been stolen, she dismissed Callisto, then Juno sought to take revenge on her husband. Jupiter was powerless to stop Juno from turning Callisto into a bear, yet managed to save his son. This further suggests that Jupiter is unable to manipulate fate to the extent implied earlier in the poem. Jupiter’s repeated sexual acts suggest that this Ovidian Jupiter cares

                                                                                                               99 Metamorphoses (1. 273-4)

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only for his own fate and enjoyment, rather than the Iliadic and Virgilian guardian of all people and gods. The most damning evidence of Jupiter’s descent from the idealistic guardian of men is when Ovid writes:

“sceptri gravitate relicta ille pater rectorque deum, cui dextra trisulcis ignibus armata est, qui nutu concutit orbem,induitur faciem tauri mixtusque ivuencis mugit et in teneris formosus obambulat herbis.” 100 (“And so the father and ruler of all the gods, whose right hand wields the three-forked lightening, whose nod can sway the whole word, discarded his mighty sceptre and clothed himself in the form of a bull.”)

The drastic juxtaposition between the Iliadic and Ovidian forms of Jupiter proves a stark contrast between the omnipotent king in the first book and the morally depraved figure now. Furthermore, the shedding of his sceptre, the object that depicted him as a ruler of might and power earlier on in the book, starts the depiction of Jovian indignity that is omnipresent throughout the book101. By showing this side of Jupiter, Ovid removes any idea from readers that he is simply trying to imitate Virgil directly in his writing. He makes it clear that he is writing his very own new style of epic. Jupiter’s ancestors

Jupiter assumes a great amount of control over his descendants’ destinies in both epics, and in these Ovid presents a more Virgilian idea of Zeus. Firstly Virgil in Jupiter’s original speech to Venus makes it explicitly clear to her that for all of Aeneas’ journey he will take control and make sure that the destiny shall be fulfilled. This again is further heightened in Book 4 when he sends Mercury down to Aeneas to remind him of his duty. Jupiter addresses Mercury saying:

“Vade age, nate, voca Zephyros et labere pennis, Dardaniumque ducem, Tyria Karthagine qui nunc exspectat, fatisque datas non respicit urbes, adloquere, et celeris defer mea dicta per auras.” 102

(“Up with you my son. Call for the Zephyrs, glide down on your wings and speak to the Trojan leader who now lingers in Tyrian Carthage without a thought for the cities granted him by the fates.”)

The indication is that Jupiter does not have full control of Aeneas’ destiny, as the emphatic positioning of ‘fatis’ next to ‘datas’ indicates that The Fates have sent this destiny for Aeneas, and that Jupiter is merely reminding him that it is his destiny to fulfil his fate, as he cannot actively control Aeneas to do this. Yet Aeneas does this as his descendant, offering him the most favoured treatment from Jupiter. As a result, since Aeneas’ piety is that of a hero, he leaves Carthage creating huge pain for Dido, in possibly one of the most pathetic moments in ancient literature.

                                                                                                               100 Metamorphoses (2.847-851) 101 Jupiter in Ovid’s Metamorphoses C.P. Segal 82 102 Aeneid (4.223-226)

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In addition to this, Jupiter’s continued safekeeping of Ascanius suggests that with his own descendants, Jupiter takes much care in deciding their fate. Firstly Ascanius escaped Troy during the attack with his father, suggesting that Jupiter was taking care of his fate, as children with higher status such as Astyanax, Hector and Andromache’s son, were not spared. Furthermore, Jove guides Ascanius’ arrow in order that he can kill Remelus. Not only does this show that Jupiter favours him, but also in battle, when the gods are hugely busy, Jupiter takes time out to specifically guide Ascanius’ arrow, showing his huge support for Aeneas’ son. The god’s support for Ascanius is also shown most prominently when Virgil writes:

“liceat dimittere ab armis incolumem Ascanium, liceat superesse nepotem. Aeneas sane ignotis iactetur in undis et, quamcumque viam dederit Fortuna, sequatur: hunc tegere et dirae valeam subducere pugnae.” 103 (“Allow me to take Ascanius safely out of war. Allow my grandson to live. As for Aeneas, let him be tossed by storms in unknown waters and go the road that Fortune gives him, but grant me the power to protect Ascanius and take him out of this fearful battle.”)

Venus begged Jupiter to control fate in order to save Ascanius from the battle that is raging, since she assumes that Jupiter, as the omnipotent king, is able to shape fate so that Ascanius’ death does not occur. Jupiter’s power is heightened further as she says that Fortune can lead him wherever, implying that Jupiter can stop his personal control of Aeneas’ fate as long as he shows the same amount of control over Ascanius’, indicating for the first time that Jupiter has the ability to choose individual cases of fate. This exert shows the huge power that Jupiter controls over Aeneas’ fate, and the power that he has over all his descendants from that point also. Ovid in turn also portrays Jupiter as a figure who cares greatly for his descendants. He does so with Callisto, turning her into a bear in order that she was saved from Diana’s wrath as well as granting Thetis as a wife to Peleus, a nymph to a mortal husband, something that would not have been possible without the intervention of Jupiter, thus displaying his huge power over men’s destinies. Furthermore, Jupiter exercised his power to save Bacchus. Jupiter killed Semele while she was pregnant with Bacchus when she had asked to see him (Jupiter) in his immortal state. He then took care that Bacchus should survive by transferring him from Semele’s womb into his thigh. The portrayal of Jupiter as an empathetic figure and as the omnipotent king once again contrasts hugely from the lothario status in earlier books. Being able to defy nature so that Bacchus can be born, control his fate and, most significantly, be able to make him an immortal, one of the Olympians with a huge amount of the power, displays Jupiter's awesome power over the fortune of individuals. Ovid portrays Jupiter as most powerful over the fate of his ancestors with his repeated deifications, with multiple examples involving Hercules, Aeneas and Julius Caesar. In Hercules’ deification, Jupiter employs a pompous speech highlighting the magnificent power and immortal part of himself that he has passed on to Hercules. His speech culminates with the following line:

                                                                                                               103 Aeneid (10.48-51)

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“Si quis tamen Hercule, si quis forte deo doliturus erit, data praemia nolet, sed meruisse dari sciet invitusque probabit.” 104 (“But if any among you by chance is against the admission of Hercules here as a god, he may grudge the reward, but will know it was richly deserved and grant his reluctant approval.”)

The dismissive tone and nonchalance towards the opinions of all the other gods here signifies the complete power over Hercules’ future fate that Jupiter possesses. All the other gods are powerless ultimately in the most important decisions, such as the deification of mortals. The idea that Jupiter has complete control over the fate of mortals after death is compounded with three further examples in the last two books of Metamorphoses. In two cases, that of Aeneas and of Julius Caesar, Venus asks Jupiter to ensure the deification of two of her descendants. In a third, Mars asks Jove to deify Romulus. These examples magnify the huge power that Jupiter has over the fate of men. Whilst it may not be too surprising that Venus must ask for her men to be deified, the fact that Mars, a male and extremely powerful god, has to ask explicitly shows that Jupiter alone has this power, and that all gods must ask his permission if they want deification for their followers and descendants. Furthermore it must not be ignored that all of these men mentioned are descendants of Jupiter, therefore can one assume that Jupiter manufactures and manipulates fate so that it is possible for many of his descendants to enter heaven once they have finished their mortal life? If this is the case, surely any argument that Jupiter does not control fate becomes irrelevant, as Jupiter is controlling their fate from birth, replacing the roles of the Fates. Ovid may also be praising Augustus by trying to appease him, suggesting that he is almost assured of deification after his death, as he is of the same lineage as all of the men about whom he has written. Role of the Fates Although not mentioned much in either epic, the Fates, presented as the traditional three women, are mentioned in dispatches in a role that suggests that Jupiter does not have complete control over fate. Firstly, in the Metamorphoses, the Fates are portrayed as having complete power in the tale of Proserpina. Ovid writes:

“Dixerat; at Cereri certum est educere natam. Non ita fata sinunt” 105 (“Jupiter had made his point, but Ceres was still determined to have Proserpina back. The Fates, alas, were against it”)

Thus, Proserpina had to stay in the underworld for half a year, even though this was not the desire of Ceres, as well as Jupiter who was the most powerful of the gods. Here is the first indication that Ovid gives the reader that Jupiter does not have full control of fate, that actually the Fates ultimately decide the will and destiny of all. The Fates’ control of fortune is further highlighted during the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, when Ovid writes,

                                                                                                               104 Metamorphoses (9.256-258) 105 Metamorphoses (5.533-534)

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“Talia nequiquam toto Venus anxia caelo verba iacit superosque movet; qui rumpere quamquam ferrea non possunt veteram decreta sororum.” 106 (“Such were the anxious complaints that Venus unsuccessfully aired all over Olympus. The gods were certainly moved, although they could not defy the iron decrees of the Fates.”)

This story, its importance heightened by its positioning as the last story in the final book, emphasises the Fates’ power. The hierarchy of fate is clearly portrayed here, The Fates control the lives of mortals, the gods are powerless to prevent death and give life. The Fates have decreed that Julius Caesar, one of Jupiter’s own descendants, must die and the gods are powerless to prevent it, making the question of whether Jupiter controls fate especially pertinent. Such a twist, with the prominent position at the end, creates internal questioning of Jupiter’s control for the reader, a fitting ending considering the fluctuating nature of Jupiter’s control of fate in Metamorphoses. Similarly, the appearance of the Fates in the Aeneid creates confusion for the reader over Jupiter’s power over fate. This is most prominent when Virgil writes

“Rex Iuppiter omnibus idem, fata viam inveniunt” 107 (“Jupiter is the same king to all men, The Fates will find their way”)

This line has caused much debate amongst scholars, over whether it indicates that Jupiter controls fate or whether in fact he is powerless and the Fates decide it. Whilst it is said that Jupiter is able to control fate, it is necessary for him to stand back from the action and allow fate, as he understands it, to resolve the present troubles. Jupiter, by accepting that fate will sort out affairs, is confident in the rationality and intelligibility of the history of the Fates.108 Thus the reader must ask ‘Is Jupiter saying that he has control of fate when he wants to, and he has confidence that the Fates will adhere to his command when he does not directly command it himself? Or that the Fates control fortune fully and Jupiter can only manipulate a small number of individual cases?’ Final portrayal of Jupiter Following fifteen books in the Metamorphoses, and twelve in the Aeneid, the most powerful images that the reader takes away of Jupiter are usually in the final stages of the book. Virgil creates the image of Jupiter as the omnipotent king, the master of fate, and everything in the universe. This role is further emphasised when Virgil wrote,

“Iuppiter ipse duas aequato examine lances sustinet et fata imponit diversa duorum, quem damnet labor et quo vergat pondere letum” 109

                                                                                                               106 Metamorphoses (15. 778-781) 107 Aeneid (10.112) 108 Jupiter and the Fates in the Aeneid C.H.Wilson 364 109 Aeneid (12. 725-727)

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(“Then Jupiter himself lifted up a pair of scales with the tongue centred and put the lives of the two men in them to decide who would be condemned in the ordeal of battle, and with whose weight death would descend.”)

The penultimate image of Jupiter for the reader is one that represents his huge power over the fate of mortals. His comparison of heroes' lives as nothing more than weights on a scale’, highlight the immortal and unthinkable nature and power that Jove possesses. This suggests strongly that Jupiter, at the very least, possesses influence over the fate of the two men, as he holds the scales, but his inability to decide which way they should tip and which hero should die ultimately suggests that the scales, and by extension Fate, controls the destinies of the men. Jupiter’s final appearance further heightens his control over power with his speech to Juno. In the speech, Jove assures Juno of the Rutulian’s future success in Italy. “You will see that the people who arise from this admixture of Ausonian blood will be above all men, above the gods, in devotion, and no other race will be their equals in paying you honour110.” By using the future tense consistently, which mirrors his speech at the start of the Aeneid to Juno, he shows that he alone amongst gods is able to promise future success, and not only of men, but of whole races. In contrast in the Metamorphoses, Jupiter’s final portrayal is more understated. Jupiter appears only once in the final book, during the apotheosis of Julius Caesar. An interesting contrast occurs in the final story. It begins with Jupiter unable to save Caesar from being killed when The Fates decree that he must die, before Jupiter makes a grand speech in which he deifies Caesar:

"nec nisi cum senior Pylios aequaverit annos,aetherias sedes cognataque sidera tanget. Hanc animam interea caeso de corpore raptam fac iubar, ut semper Capitolia nostra forumque divus ab excelsa prospectet Iulius aede.”111

(“Only when he has come to Pylian Nestor’s years shall he rise to our home in the heavens and join the star of his kinsman. Meanwhile, you must rescue his father’s soul from his cut-ridden body and make him a comet, that deified Julius’ image may always gaze on my Capitol Hill from the height of his shrine in the forum.”)

The certainty in Jupiter’s speech of Caesar’s son, Augustus’, deification, just like his father, shows Ovid at his most ironic, but his portrayal of Jupiter does make it seem as if he is the master of all fate, as he is judging something that is yet to happen at the time of writing. In addition the Ovidian Jupiter is finally described as “governing the heavenly heights and all the realms of the three-formed universe.”112 The final description of Jupiter given to the reader, despite various misdemeanors through the poem, is an omnipotent view of Jupiter in the Roman society of that time. His huge power and ability to judge the future suggests that even if Jupiter does not fully decide fate, he is powerful enough to be able to see and manipulate it to how he sees fit.

                                                                                                               110 Aeneid (12. 838-840) 111 Metamorphoses (15. 838-842) 112 Metamorphoses (15. 858-859)

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To conclude, Jupiter’s control of fate may fluctuate greatly throughout both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses. In the Aeneid, Tolstoy writes, “ Jupiter knows that there is something stronger and more important than his own will- the inevitable march of events- and he has the brains to see them and grasp their significance, and seeing that significance can abstain from meddling, from following his personal desires and aiming at something else.”113 Whilst this is a partially accurate view, Virgil does seem to show Jupiter as possessing more power than this suggests, more control over fate, but he chooses when to apply this power. In contrast the Fates do not have this choice, they make fate regardless of a man’s forefathers. In short, in the Aeneid, The Fates control the final destination of a person’s destiny, but Jupiter controls everything that happens in a person’s life.

In contrast, I believe that Jupiter’s control fluctuates much more in the Metamorphoses. Ovid portrays Jupiter as a lothario, such as with Io, when he takes a much more mortal role. In this example, his control not only of fate, but also of the other gods’ actions seems to diminish to that of a mortal. At other times, when he writes with Jove based on the Virgilian or Iliadic principles of the gods, he seems to be the same omnipotent god that Virgil and Homer have described. It seems that Ovid’s interest in Fate is simply for framing purposes; his central interest for the epic lies elsewhere.

It is for these reasons, I believe, that change and fates dictate the Metamorphoses whereas Virgil, attempting to imitate Homer’s writings, creates a more traditional epic that relies on Jupiter’s role as the omnipotent king and decider of fate. Consequently Virgil’s portrayal of Jupiter has a much stronger grasp of fate throughout the whole epic than Ovid’s.

                                                                                                               113 War and Peace Tolstoy via Jupiter and the Fates in the Aeneid C.H.Wilson

 

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How did Coco Chanel shape French fashion in the 20th Century and what effect did this have on women around the world? Multi-media project

By Georgina Thorpe, U6 Chandos

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They haVE GANged up to save the world. To what extent do you agree? (Vegans and vegetarians are making a positive impact on the environment, but can a change in your diet really help feed the growing population and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?)

By Miranda Bruce-Smith, U6 Queen’s It is common knowledge that we are exceeding the world’s carrying capacity with a population of over 7.2 billion, as well as being pressurized further by the predictions made by the UN that this will reach 9.6 billion by 2050114, a mere 36 years away. How do we expect to be able to continue to provide enough food and water for these vast numbers, as well as maintaining the environment, despite global warming? There is no simple solution. However, globally, it is being more widely accepted that veganism and even vegetarianism are potential ways to make a change. The Vegan Society define veganism as “a way of living which seeks to include, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose”115. However, this is not the only reason individuals make the choice to become vegan. The effects veganism has on the environment are immense and could help solve the problems facing the human race namely having enough produce to feed the world. Demand for this is increasing. However, resources are not. This means that now, more than ever before, it is essential to assess the options we have before us and make compromises to ensure we make the most of the resources available. The idea of the world becoming vegan will not be accepted without resistance, according to Pollan: “to say you shouldn’t eat meat is a moral challenge, it’s an ethical challenge and it’s a challenge to your tradition” (Pollan, 2014). In this essay, I attempt to argue and prove why the vegan lifestyle, despite being undeniably drastic, can help us to keep up with the exponential growth of wants and needs. The production of everything requires energy. Nevertheless, meat requires far more than other produce, placing further pressure on the energy crisis we face. We are currently experiencing high levels of demand for energy due to global population growth, global economic growth and continued urbanisation, as well as the resulting increased pressure on mobility and other energy-dependent services. With our current levels of output and prediction that our supply of fossil fuels may run out by 2050, it is clear we need to make changes which will aid us in keeping up with population growth and modernising industry. Emerging countries now account for 80% of global energy consumption116 and newly developed countries such as China, have become the world’s largest energy consumers during the past four years. This is a significant issue because many LEDCs are advancing beyond this state and can be seen in the industrialisation phase. This means living standards will be expected to increase, which in turn requires more energy and food in order to increase life expectancy with the inevitable impact on deprivation scores. We could heavily reduce our consumption of energy by altering the amount of meat we consume. Simply by looking at the amount of energy which goes into making the meat we eat up to three times a day, it can be argued that this is the way to minimise energy

                                                                                                               114 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45165#.U-I0R16kRg0 115 http://www.vegansociety.com/try-vegan/definition-veganism 116 http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/Energy-economics/statistical-review-2014/BP-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2014-full-report.pdf

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consumption. More importantly, it could create more food in the form of grains and legumes in order to feed a larger proportion of our population, instead of feeding the privileged with food they do not strictly require. The “meatification” of the global diet has been pinned as one of the main reasons we have “approximately 25,000 people die (dying) daily from hunger around the world”117. Having identified the problem, there is a clear way forward to alter and minimise it. This is, to cut out or cut back on our meat intake from a staggering 91kilograms of farmed animal products, the annual consumption of many individuals in developing countries. With global food prices having risen due to inflation, it is very important that we find a way to increase food production in order to drive down prices. It is estimated that every year 40 per cent of the world’s grain is fed to livestock rather than directly to humans. However, in the US alone, by taking the grain that the livestock require and feeding it to people, 800 million more could be fed. For this reason, the vegan and vegetarian lifestyle can be seen to impact on the lives of so many others who otherwise would not be fed. With our population set to increase by 2.3 billion by 2050, the more food we can produce, the more people we can save, while consuming less energy per kilogram of food produce. This data proves that giving up meat alone can help solve the world’s environmental problems. Despite this, meat consumption is predicted to reach 470 million tons per year by 2050, according to leading German environmentalist groups in their “2014 Meat Atlas”. This is due to an increased demand from both industrialised and developing countries such as China and India as well as the “boom” nations. The latter are nations with rising middle classes who have begun to diversify their diets thereby affecting their meat consumption. However, the amount of energy that is consumed for this process is not worth the results. As with energy, water is used in vast quantities to produce meat for our diet. This can be seen as a waste, as grains and legumes require far less. Water is essential for human beings and our future. The UN’s website on the global water outlook states, "Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the world in the 21st century. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water."118 Despite there being far more water than land on our planet, a mere 2.5 per cent of this is fresh water and 68.9 per cent of this is locked up in glaciers making it inaccessible. This is not the only reason we are close to reaching physical water scarcity. Producing food and energy requires vast amounts of water. Looking at both meat and wheat production, it can be proven that meat requires far more water.

                                                                                                               117 http://www.anuradhasawhney.com/blog/?p=102 118 http://www.fewresources.org/water-scarcity-issues-were-running-out-of-water.html

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Figure 1 For instance it takes 100,000 litres to produce only 1 kilogram of beef, while wheat requires a far smaller and more reasonable amount of 900 litres per kilogram. This comparison emphasises the excess quantities that animal farming requires. With nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population being affected by a lack of water119, this appears to be unethical. As global scarcity increases, so does the number of people affected. This needs to change. The graph above taken from the International Water Management Institute re-emphasises this point as it requires 15.3 more cubic metres of water to produce one kilogram of beef than tomatoes. By giving up meat and dairy produce like vegans, we could save roughly 5000 litres of water per day per person. This can be explained by looking at the process of meat production for beef. Cows require care for 3 years in order to produce a mere 200 kilograms of boneless beef. In order to achieve this they consume 1300 kilograms of grain, wheat, oats and barley besides 7200 kilograms of roughage including pasture and dry hay. To produce the roughage, 24,000 litres of drinking water are required and 7000 more litres are utilised to service the farmhouse and slaughtering process, making a total of 3,060,000 litres of water for such a measly amount of meat. This data encourages us to see that a diet revolved around meat is not healthy, especially when a vegetarian on average consumes half the amount of water daily at only 2500 litres per day. If every person in the world gave up meat, even if only for one day a week, we could halve our water consumption and distribute it more evenly. It is time to change our attitude to meat consumption and see meat not as a main dish with vegetables on the side, but more as a side dish accompanying our vegetables. This is essential if we want to manage our world’s resources more sustainably. It means ‘meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations’, according to Bruntdland when addressing the UN. It would involve profoundly changing our society’s current attitude to consumption. Many people argue that meat is essential to our lives as it provides the necessary protein to help us grow and remain healthy. However, few understand that protein can be found elsewhere. This is proven by vegans and vegetarians who are able to live long and healthy lives, (if not longer and healthier) by eating legumes rich in protein. Our recommended daily protein intake is set at 46 grams for women and 56 grams for men. So where do vegans and vegetarians find the nutrients they require?

                                                                                                               119 http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-go-vegetarian-in-charts-2013-10

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Figure 2 Despite the common belief that there are few alternatives to meat, protein can be found in nuts, seeds, tofu, legumes and for vegetarians in eggs and dairy produce as well. Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein, according to the Cornell ecologist's analysis. Besides using fewer resources when living a plant protein lifestyle, fewer pesticides and chemicals are released into the water and soil, making these sources of protein far better for the environment in both the short and long term. Of course it can be argued that meat is the main source of protein for the majority of people’s eating habits. If this were to change, then the human body would be able to adapt to the different proteins available from plants. This would have the added benefit of drastically reducing the amount of fats that we consume, which are not needed, and have been linked to obesity. According to the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Americans consume roughly 4.6 servings of meat a day on average, compared to only three servings of fruits and vegetables120. These figures show that this is far more protein and far less plant produce than the recommended allowance for a balanced diet. This means that not only would reduction in meat consumption relieve the problems we face concerning global produce supplies, it would also help individuals meet the recommended scientifically proven allowances to help us reduce chances of illnesses associated with meat such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. No one is attempting to cover up the problems we face with an increasing population, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing demand and falling resources. Nevertheless, there are different views on how to deal with it. Malthus, alive over 200 years ago, came up with the theory that nature would take its course in ensuring that we did not reach over 6 billion people on this Earth. His ideology stated that we would be unable to look after so many people and as a result they would be killed off by disease, war and general unrest. With today’s modern agricultural methods which include the use of pesticides, genetically modified crops and the ability to mass produce with slaughter houses, we have been able to increase production to meet demand. As of 2013, our birth rate of 131.4 million now greatly exceeds our death rate of 55.3 million people121. This was not the case when he wrote his theories.

                                                                                                               120 http://www.livestrong.com/article/538228-effects-of-eating-meat-and-obesity/ 121 http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/greatc.html

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According to Malthus “Dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful. A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsidence from his parents, or if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone.”122 It is important to take a different view and help those in poverty, by focusing on ways that make changes. This could involve changing your own diet to help feed others. Dr Weldon Bellos once said: “The American fast food diet and the meat eating habits of the wealthy around the world support a world food system that diverts food resources from the hungry. A diet higher in whole grains and legumes and lower in beef and other meat is not just healthier for ourselves but also contributes to changing the world system that feeds some people and leaves others hungry.” Vegans and vegetarians are seen to be saving the world by helping to save the lives of others. The more people join in, the more changes can be made to an individual’s life by providing them with a more balanced diet. Food is not scarce as such, it is just unevenly distributed and too much is produced in the form of meat. It is time to depart from this and realise that we do not depend on meat to stay alive. What we depend on is food and the alternatives are right in front of us, we just have to choose them. If we take a look at what would happen if the world turned vegan or vegetarian, we can decide whether or not we could in fact save the world as many vegans claim. There are two possible scenarios: the first being that the whole world might wake up one day and decide to become either vegan or vegetarian; or the second, that we could continue to consume as much meat as we do currently. Quantities would increase in line with population growth. According to research undertaken by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency 123 , the consequences of the first would be widespread unemployment (due to the loss of 1.3 billion jobs in the agricultural sector), economic disruption (caused by the loss of an entire industry), increased availability of millions of squares of land and a lowered risk of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. The unsanitary conditions in animal farming have reduced the effectiveness of antibiotics but this could supposedly be reversed with fewer animals being bred for slaughter. The second scenario would result in exponential growth of global warming, (due to the greenhouse gases emitted by animal farming), more disastrous weather events (such as those we have seen recently), and increased global conflicts over land, energy resources and food. In this case, it is likely we would see the wealthy thrive while the poor suffer. Only the rich will be able to afford the meat produce and it could be argued that this does in fact resemble the hypothesis made by Malthus. The best option, as I see it, is to meet in the middle. It is essential we start to eat less meat. Animal farming utilises 26 per cent of the world’s ice-free land and we do not want to live in a world where further conflict arises when we can change through a little time and effort. It is essential to decrease our meat consumption gradually, rather than increase it in order to phase out the economy. At least we should try to lower it so that the consequences arising from the first scenario do not occur. It is not going to be an easy process, but that does not mean we should not try, especially when the solution is within our grasp. In order to produce enough meat to match demand in supermarkets, factory farming takes place globally, accounting for as much as 99 per cent124 of the meat we eat today. The effect this method of meat production has on the environment is devastating. This is due to the vast amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by these Confined Animal Feeding Operations. It is a natural process for cows to release methane in their manure. Yet the amount released has increased drastically. This is

                                                                                                               122 Peoplequake by Fred Pearce. Part One: Malthusian Nightmare 123 http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/feed_the_world/2014/05/meat_eating_and_climate_change_ vegetarians_impact_on_the_economy_antibiotics.html 124 http://www.sustainabletable.org/265/environment

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due to a diet of genetically modified corn and soya which their bodies are not capable of digesting, as well as a steady diet of antibiotics. The latter help control the diseases these cattle readily obtain from stress and living in such compact conditions. It is true that the conditions have been improved over the past few years; however, disposal of all the manure still poses problems. The manure is dumped into “lagoons” where some becomes composted manure, a primary resource of soil fertility for organic farmers. Leaks are not a rare occurrence. As the manure also contains antibiotics, there is a direct threat posed to the environment through run- off into lakes, rivers, aquifers and even drinking water. These spills can also be seen to affect and harm human beings. As a result of its daily use for factory farm animals, we have become far more immune to antibiotics, a vital medication which now works far less effectively than it should. This is not the only consequence mentioned in a report published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in which it provides data to show that “animal agriculture is responsible for 18 per cent of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, including 37 per cent of methane emissions and 65 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions.”125 To make matters worse, the methane that is released from the millions of enclosed animals is 70 times more damaging per ton to the earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide. This all occurs because factory farming concentrates on an unnatural number of animals. This in turn produces excess waste. Looking at the data, one hog produces 17.5 pounds of manure on average a day but the majority of factory farms can hold as much as 35,000. Therefore, over 4 million pounds of waste is produced per week or over 200 million pounds a year. This is wholly unsustainable as there is not enough space to store all the waste. We clearly need to find an alternative way to farm if we are to continue eating meat. In the USA alone, nearly 95 per cent of meat, dairy and eggs sold come from Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Yet there are other ways to farm animals in much more sanitary conditions which have far less of an impact on global warming. Although many people believe that factory farming is a far cheaper and efficient way to produce meat, this is not the case. In reality, for every one hundred food calories of edible crops that are fed to the livestock, humans obtain a mere thirty calories in the form of dairy and meat, a 70 per cent loss. Despite many vegans arguing that the elimination of meat and dairy farming is the best solution, a more realistic alternative for today’s carnivorous diet would be to aim to remove factory farming but maintain the production of meat on small scale farms. This would create local and organic produce. Michael Pollan, who was voted as one of the 100 most influential people in the world according to ‘The Times’, says: “We need to reform the meat system, not eliminate it”. This appears to be our best option if we are to effect a change that is more likely to be globally accepted in the twenty-first century. In order to achieve a reduction in global meat consumption, top down government intervention will be required to help notify the public of the effect of our high meat consumption. This could be achieved through legislation or meat taxation. It could be seen to be a de-merit good with negative external effects on the public which they fail to acknowledge. This would give people the incentive to avoid eating meat, which should theoretically reduce the purchase of meat and increase those of legumes as they are cheaper. In addition, individual changes to our diet, such as eliminating meat and fish could encourage others to reduce their consumption too. We need to inform others, as naivety is not an excuse; the consequences of our meat consumption need to be passed on in order to spark a change in people’s attitudes.

                                                                                                               125 http://ecowatch.com/2013/01/21/factory-farming-global-warming/  

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In conclusion, vegans are clearly making a positive impact on the environment. By not eating meat or dairy products they are not participating in helping factory farms stay in business. This reduces their individual carbon footprint as well as their indirect grain and water consumption, making more food available for others. The extent to which they are saving the world cannot be measured accurately as the data identifying the number of vegans in the world is unknown. Taking into consideration one million vegetarians, it is safe to say that by giving up meat and fish, they are reducing their negative impact on the world and may even be helping to save and nurture it for future generations. It is over ambitious to believe that people will take up an entirely vegan or vegetarian diet as meat plays such a crucial and dominant role in our lives. However, shifting to a more plant based diet is essential if we wish to feed the worlds’ growing population. In purely quantitative terms we have enough food to feed the world. Now it is just a question of changing perceptions. Even if we only begin by removing meat from our diet for one or two days a week, there will be vast changes if it is done on a global scale. Although vegans may not be saving the world in every aspect, they are certainly taking part in a food revolution. It would be ignorant and naïve to believe that every person in the world would be willing to make a change to their diet. Yet we are living in an age where consumption is endless and this must be stopped. Factory farms do need to be phased out and our perceptions about meat modified. We cannot remove meat from everyone’s lives entirely. This would create a huge ripple effect on every country’s economy and workforce. Nevertheless the need to change is more apparent than ever and the choices individuals make each day concerning what they eat affects everyone around them, including future generations.

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‘At the conclusion of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault emerges triumphant.’ Discuss.

By Sophie Caws, U6 Queen’s At the end of his 1942 novel, Albert Camus has his protagonist, Meursault, sentenced to death by guillotine, ‘“in the name of the French people”126’. His crime was the unplanned murder of an anonymous Arab man on a beach in 1940s French Algeria. For his apparent lack of remorse or contention at his crime, he is labelled as having ‘nothing human about [him], not one of those moral qualities which normal men possess had any place in [his] mentality127’, by his prosecutor. To many who view him superficially, Meursault is an apathetic, emotionless, and remorseless man, who was unable to shed a tear at his own mother’s funeral; much less, to think of the consequences of committing a spontaneous murder. Throughout the novel, Meursault seems ambivalent towards his relationships with others; he mainly interacts with his ‘pal’, Raymond Sintes, a pimp, an elderly neighbour Salamano and his dog, Celeste, a local restaurant owner, and his typist fiancée Marie, whom he ‘does not have time’ to look in the eye as he is sentenced in court. This seems at the very least to be an unpleasant, but largely justified, ending to Meursault’s life; after all, murderers must be punished. Meursault’s seemingly largely uneventful, emotionless and detached life ends in a way that befits his life. However, at least one reader of The Stranger would disagree with this- its author, Albert Camus. In a 1955 interview, Camus described his protagonist as ‘not a wreck’, but as having a ‘passion for the absolute and for truth’. Meursault ‘was sentenced to death...because he does not show emotion’. Meursault, therefore, emerges from his seemingly uneventful and detached life ‘roaming the sidelines’ of society, as ‘the only Christ we deserve’, because he is’ without any heroic attitude, willing to die for the truth’. The ‘truth’ to which Camus refers here is his philosophy of ‘the absurd’; the idea that the universe is benignly indifferent to human suffering, hence humans create gods, civilisations, countries, and relationships, in order to fill this void. If we are to agree with Camus, we may say that Meursault is a kind of absurdist martyr; a man willing to die to reveal the truth of the indifference of the world. Meursault, the outsider on earth, is, therefore, triumphant, as he realises that a death suffered in the pursuit of honesty is a death worth dying. To decide whether Meursault is triumphant, we must first decide whether it is more important for Meursault to have escaped from the shackles of society’s expectations of life, death and fate, even if this means sacrificing his human relationships. Alternatively, does the true victory lie in the denial or indifference to the ‘absurd’ and the hostility of the universe? The Stranger in translation It is also worth commenting on how the use of various translations, and indeed, the translation of The Stranger in general, has affected this study. Before conducting this study, I read the novel in its original French (titled L’Étranger) as published by Librarie Gallimard in 1942. To aid my comprehension of the novel, I accompanied this by reading Stuart Gilbert’s original English translation (published in 1946). Gilbert’s edition was ‘read as the standard English translation... for over thirty years128’, and any quotations

                                                                                                               126 The Stranger, Stuart Gilbert, p68 All further page references in this paper refer to this version, unless otherwise stated 127 Gilbert, p63 128 Wikipedia

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made directly from the novel in this study are from Gilbert’s translation. I have also studied specific instances of discrepancies or difficulties in translation in various editions of the text, most notably the most recent version by Sandra Smith, published in 2013. The translation of all books is vital for the author’s work to reach as wide an audience as possible. This is particularly true in the case of works as revered as The Stranger, which has been translated into English by 5 different translators. Of course, the benefits of translation are occasionally outweighed by some meaning being lost in the translation process. Whilst one sentence, phrase, or indeed, one word, may seem relatively insignificant when seen as part of one novel, these instances often arrive at crucial points in the book’s development. Unfortunately, inaccurate translations can risk severely changing or obscuring the author’s intent, of which there are several poignant examples in The Stranger. The first and most obvious of these examples is the novel’s title. L’Étranger has three possible English translations: it can mean ‘the stranger’, ‘the outsider’, and ‘the foreigner’. Gilbert opted forThe Stranger, whilst Smith opted for The Outsider for her 2013 translation. On the title, Smith commented that Meursault’s character is simultaneously a stranger, an outsider and a foreigner, and that ‘the concept of an outsider encapsulates all these possible meanings: Meursault is a stranger to himself, an outsider to society and a foreigner because he is a Frenchman in Algeria129.’ Whilst I agree with Smith’s justification of her title, I feel that The Outsider oversimplifies the complexity of Meursault’s circumstances. Of course, Meursault is a foreigner and a physical outsider in Algiers because he was born in Algeria to a French family, but to say this is the only cause of his isolation would be an incomplete explanation. Instead, the most apt translation for L’Étranger is The Stranger, as it represents Meursault’s isolation from within his own society. The cycle of the absurd In order to understand and interpret L’Etranger, we must first come to an understanding of the principal philosophy behind the novel, and, indeed, much of Camus’ work: the cycle of the absurd. Absurdism is a branch of existentialism130 focusing on the human desire for higher meaning, purpose and order to our lives, and the desire to give reasons for every human action or thought. This cannot be provided for humans, as the universe is fundamentally, yet benignly, indifferent to injustices and human suffering. The idea of the absurd lies with the human reaction to this reality; humans create gods, civilisations, countries and societies to fill the void left by the indifference of the universe. Camus explained: ‘The absurd is not in man, nor in the world... but in their presence together... it is the only bond uniting them131’. Simpson eloquently summarises the absurd as: ‘we inhabit a world that is indifferent to our sufferings and deaf to our protests132’. Camus presents three possible solutions to this problem, but suggests that only one is a worthwhile solution. The first choice is suicide, which Camus cites as the most rational choice; if we determine that there is no meaning or purpose of life, we can physically remove ourselves from it. However, Camus discourages this, as it is not a worthwhile solution. It is merely a renunciation and denial of life, rather than an acceptance of it. The second option is what Camus terms ‘philosophical suicide’; the acceptance of religion, and belief in a transcendent being that gives a purpose to human life. Whilst it is possible to give life a purpose by living governed by a higher power, this power must then be attributed to another, and so on. This solution is, according to Camus, a dishonest one, as it cannot be justified by

                                                                                                               129 Sandra Smith, interviewed by Claire Messud, New York Review of Books, June ’13 130 Although referred to here as a branch of existentialism, absurdism does not require existentialist beliefs to make it valid. 131 Camus, referenced by Simpson 132 Simpson

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reason, but only by faith. Unlike the first option, the second does not remove the physical confrontation between humanity and the universe, but simply glosses over it, replacing the confrontation with a more optimistic alternative. The third option, and Camus’ only valid solution, is to accept the absurd in life. As the absurd is an unavoidable, omnipresent confrontation that is integral to life, humankind can benefit only from accepting it. In fact, Camus sees this acceptance of the absurd as an act of courage, as ‘life can be lived all the better if it has no meaning’. The acceptance of the inevitable futility of trying to explain human life can free us from the restrictions of justifying our actions and living out painful emotions that have no purpose. In The Stranger, this is how Meursault lives his life, and this essay aims to decide whether he is successful in doing this by the end of the novel. Meursault and Maman: Meursault’s relationships and characteristics In order to assess Meursault’s victory at the end of the novel, we must first assess his characteristics at the beginning, which are closely linked to his relationships with other characters. It is certain that Meursault’s relationships with others are conducted with an almost ‘pathological detachment133’, but it is not difficult to say that Meursault has very few relationships at all. In fact, he only has sustained interactions with three other characters throughout the novel; Marie Cardona, his girlfriend and later fiancée, Raymond Sintes, a ‘pal’, who recruits Meursault, and Celeste, a local restaurant owner. However, arguably the most important relationship that Meursault has with a character who is entirely physically absent from the novel: his mother. This is Meursault’s most important relationship, as he is judged by his actions after his mother’s death repeatedly throughout the novel. In fact, we are able to judge their relationship from the very first sentence of the novel: ‘Mother died today.’ (‘Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.’) This first line of The Stranger is a prime example of meaning becoming lost in translation. Gilbert translates ‘maman’ as ‘mother’, which, whilst technically correct, loses its significance in French. Sandra Smith chose to translate the sentence as ‘my mother died today’, which she felt ‘implied the closeness that you get with the French’, and implied that Meursault was speaking directly to the reader. She justified her choice to stray from the original translation of ‘mother’ as it ‘did not get across the close relationship that ‘maman’ implies in French... a child’s term [for their mother]’. As mentioned previously, discussing the difficulties of translation is vital when considering the original intent behind a foreign language text; it not only helps to put across the real meaning of the text, but can also help future translators. In this case, obscuring the connotation of ‘maman’ once translated interferes with the reader’s interpretation of Meursault’s relationship with his mother. Throughout the novel, Meursault is judged (some would say unfairly) on his grief - or apparent lack of it - after his mother’s death. Indeed, when Meursault goes to Marengo for his mother’s funeral, Meursault does not want to see her body, but instead drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes with the porter there, keeping ‘the usual overnight vigil’ over the body. There is also much to be said about Meursault’s relationship with typist Marie Cardona, who worked at his office ‘for a short time... but nothing came of it’. Arthur Scherr calls Marie an ‘ambivalent nature-symbol134’ in his study of the character. She ‘represents love of life... more than any other character135’; indeed, Meursault’s relationship with Marie bears the closest semblance to a typical courtship. They swim together, go to the cinema, and have a sexual relationship. Indeed, it is worth noting that Meursault’s descriptions of Marie are virtually the only use of colour in the novel: for instance, ‘she had on a very

                                                                                                               133 David Simpson, De Paul University 134 Scherr, p2 135 Scherr, p2

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pretty dress, with red and white stripes’, and ‘her suntanned face was like a brown velvety flower’. According to Scherr, Meursault, ‘an essentially passive individual, requires the stimulation of a...life affirming young woman like Marie to awaken his sexuality’. However, I disagree slightly with Scherr on this point; whilst Meursault and Marie do have a sexual relationship, Meursault does not express any physical attraction towards Marie other than ‘when she laughed, [he] always wanted to kiss her’. Moreover, Meursault appears to be attracted to Marie only for very obvious physical reasons, such as ‘her very pretty dress’ and ‘firm little breasts’. With these remarks, it is almost as if Meursault is finding such aspects of Marie attractive because he knows that, objectively, he should. This perhaps justifies Scherr’s comment that Marie is ‘a mere cardboard sexual plaything for... Meursault136’. Marie appears to know the real, apathetic, dispassionate, and often unintentionally insensitive Meursault, and yet she stays with him nonetheless, even after the shooting of the Arab. A notable passage which summarises their relationship comes before that fateful shooting, when Marie asks Meursault if he loves her. ‘I said that sort of question had no meaning, really;’ he replies, ‘but I supposed I didn’t137’. Again, when Marie asks Meursault if he will marry her, to which Meursault replies that ‘[he] didn’t mind; if she was keen on it, [they’d] get married.’ Scherr writes that Marie is ‘ultimately a natural woman, who appreciates Meursault’s blunt honesty138’, which, in my view, is certainly true of her character. Most poignantly, Marie calls Meursault ‘a queer fellow’, which is the reason she loves him; ‘but maybe one day [she’ll] come to hate [him]’. Marie never does hate Meursault; she is a witness at his trial, and is present when he is sentenced to death, though ‘he didn’t have time to glance in her direction’. Whilst Marie’s unconditional support of Meursault could be seen as a touching gesture in an altogether bleak novel, it may alternatively justify Scherr’s comments that Marie is a ‘helpless, passionless woman lacking an individual identity139’, as she relies on Meursault’s approval and declarations of his affection for her throughout the novel. By examining Meursault’s relationships with other characters, namely his own mother and Marie, we can begin to see the foundations of Meursault’s life before the murder of the Arab, and we can then assess his victory at the end of the novel. Has Meursault triumphed over the futility of human relationships, fabricated to fill the void left by the universe? Or has he lost the only remaining human connections that he had, thereby limiting his ability to live a fulfilling life? As previously mentioned, Marie is present at Meursault’s sentencing near the end of the novel, and, although Meursault does not look at her in court, in prison, ‘[he] used to try and see a face - Marie’s face140’. As Meursault thinks of Marie in prison, he presumes that ‘she had grown tired of becoming the mistress of a man who was sentenced to death141’, though, rather than becoming depressed at the thought of losing Marie, Meursault surmises that ‘we will all be forgotten after our deaths’. This suggests that he does not feel he will hurt Marie after he dies, and, in any case, is not concerned about doing so. A more notable theme throughout the novel is the way Meursault is judged on his reaction to his mother’s death. Camus himself summarised The Stranger in 1955, with the remark that 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does

                                                                                                               136 Scherr, p2 137 Gilbert, p24 138 Scherr, p3 139 Scherr, p3 140 Gilbert, p67 141 Gilbert, p67

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not play the game142’. Indeed, Meursault refuses to ‘play the game in court’, as his prosecutor shames him for beginning a sexual relationship and going to see a comic film the day after his mother’s death, and for not shedding one tear at her funeral. From this, he concludes that Meursault has no soul, and ‘nothing human about [him]’, and that his ‘lack of decent instinct makes him a menace to society’. In typical Meursault fashion, our protagonist is seemingly unaffected by these barbs, and ‘was conscious only of the steadily increasing heat143’. The prosecutor unashamedly proclaims that Meursault is ‘morally guilty for his mother’s death’, and that he is ‘devoid of the least spark of human feeling’. Meursault seems largely unaffected by this, still only aware of the heat, but an uncommon flash of nostalgia rushes through him as his defense lawyer gives his closing argument: ‘memories of a life which was [his] no longer, and... the surest, humblest pleasures... Marie’s dresses and her laugh144’. Meursault’s sudden surge of memories is most unlike his character, and suggests that he does hold affection, however weak, for his life. This, in turn, is one of the first indications that we have that Meursault has something to lose from dying. Nevertheless, what may have appeared to be nostalgia and longing on Meursault’s part is quickly rectified within the next sentence: ‘the futility of what was happening here took me by the throat... and I had only one idea: to get it over145’. This shows the reader that Meursault does not have anything to live for after all; the futility of his death sentence will prevent him from living his life again, and therefore Meursault has nothing to lose by dying. Whilst this is not an outright victory for Meursault, this bittersweet revelation coincides with Camus’ absurdist philosophy, as summarised by Meursault: ‘life’s just not all that worth living, anyhow146’. ‘The fatal door of destiny147’: Meursault’s final days It is unquestionable that Meursault’s trial and final days as described in the novel are a transformative period for his character. Meursault has a ‘revelation’ whilst alone in his prison cell, awaiting the results of his appeal and possible execution. An undoubtedly important moment in Meursault’s transformation is his meeting with the prison chaplain, who ‘[walks] in unannounced to Meursault’s cell. The chaplain, a ‘mild and amiable man’, begins to question Meursault about his beliefs. Throughout the chaplain’s attempts to persuade him to turn to God, Meursault remains his ambivalent self: ‘I saw no point in troubling my head about the matter... a question of so little importance... I didn’t want to be helped.’ Just as the chaplain is about to give up, he ‘burst out passionately: ‘No! No! I refuse to believe it. I’m sure you’ve often wished there was an afterlife.’ He then asks Meursault what he wishes from an afterlife, to which Meursault replies ‘a life in which I can remember this life on Earth. That’s all I want from it.’ The chaplain is about to leave the cell, when his closing remark - ‘I shall pray for you’ - touches a nerve with Meursault. ‘Something seemed to break inside me,’ he says, ‘and I started yelling at the top of my voice...in a sort of ecstasy and rage.’ He yells at the chaplain that ‘all that time, [he’d] been waiting for this present moment...which was to justify [him]’. Meursault yells that the lives of other men could not possibly have any effect on him, as they will ‘choose’ the same fate as him in the end. ‘All alike would be condemned to die one day’, he declares, ‘his turn, too, will come like the others.’ This transformation is almost miraculous for Meursault, as his character’s evolution appears to have been compounded into                                                                                                                142 Wikipedia 143 Gilbert, p63 144 Gilbert, p65 145 Gilbert, p65 146 Gilbert, p45 147 Sandra Smith, The Outsider

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one short page of the novel. In this passage Meursault ceases to be passive, choosing to shout at the chaplain, to grab him by the neck, and accept his death. These actions of choice and human will seemed impossible for Meursault in the first part of the novel, and even the Meursault at the beginning of the passage, who ‘didn’t want to be helped’. The indifferent, apathetic Meursault has become the accepting, courageous Meursault, who, despite knowing the futility of life and the idea that humans have a choice in their fate full well, goes forward and chooses his death. Meursault awakes the next morning ‘on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again’. He has been ‘[emptied] of hope’, and, ‘[lays his] heart open to the benign indifference of the universe148’. The final lines of the novel are telling of Meursault’s attitude; ‘for all to be consummated, all that remained was to hope that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should great me with howls of execration’. This is representative of Meursault’s newfound consciousness, his awareness of the futility of the choice of fate. He hopes that there will be crowds of hateful spectators witnessing his death, because only he will know the truth. These spectators, despite having lived their lives differently, despite believing different things, despite believing that they had a choice in how they lived, were ‘all elected by the same fate149’; death. ‘There is only one class of man’, says Meursault to the chaplain, ‘the privileged class’. All men are privileged to be chosen by the same fate of death. And why is this ‘privileged class’ sentenced to death? ‘The benign indifference of the universe’, of course. The universe cannot care for humanity in the way we wish, and the universe is harmlessly indifferent to injustices such as these. Meursault is ‘animated by a passion...for the absolute and for truth150’. This, in Camus’ eyes, makes Meursault triumphant; although he searches for ‘a negative truth... it is a truth without which no conquest of the self or of the world is possible151’, a view with which I firmly agree. Meursault: ‘The only Christ we deserve’? Throughout this study, it has been seen that Meursault, Camus’ apathetic anti-hero, a true outsider, triumphs over the futility of his death sentence. He is transformed from an indifferent man, to a man who ‘opens [his] eyes to the benign indifference of the universe’, a man of acceptance. In the eyes of his creator, Camus, this makes him ‘the only Christ we deserve’, a martyr for the cause of absolute truth and honesty as the cure for a human race that is blinded by its belief in a higher power and a purpose for life, placed in a universe that can never care for it in the way it desires. Whilst Meursault’s personification of Camus’ absurdist philosophy does not come without sacrifice in terms of human relationships and enjoyment of life, it ultimately allows him to triumph. Perhaps, after all, this was Meursault’s purpose in a seemingly futile existence.

                                                                                                               148 Gilbert, p72 149 Sandra Smith 150 Camus on Meursault, taken from Cliffsnotes 151 Camus on Meursault, taken from Cliffsnotes

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Will the emergence of quantum computers pose a threat to our encryption systems?

By Christine Cheng, U6 Westal

Quantum computing is one of the hottest topics in the technology world. Documents from whistle-blower Edward Snowden have shown that the National Security Agency (NSA) of the USA, has spent £49m on the development of a quantum computer that is capable of breaking encryption. A practical quantum computer still does not exist. However, it has already ignited many discussions among scientists about its potential and power. The aim of this essay is to take a closer look at quantum computers and quantum cryptography to consider and how they will affect our current ways of encrypting communication. Quantum mechanics Nobel laureate Niels Bohr once said, ‘Anyone who is not shocked by the quantum theory has not understood it.’152 Quantum mechanics is a bizarre topic that is impossible to explain in a few words. However, it is necessary that we grasp the basic principles of quantum mechanics before trying to understand what quantum computing, one of its applications, is all about. I will try my best to explain the topic in the shortest and easiest possible way.

Quantum mechanics and classical mechanics are two completely different branches of physics. Classical mechanics is deterministic, whereas quantum mechanics is probabilistic. The former allows us to describe the state of a system using its position and momentum. For example, when we throw a ball, if we know its velocity when t=t0, we can easily predict its displacement when t=t1 using the equations of motion. Another example is that we can predict the force needed to accelerate the ball with a known mass to a=a1 using F=ma. However, subatomic particles do not behave like a ball in the macroscopic world and we must use quantum mechanics to understand more about them.

The reason elementary particles153 do not behave in the same way as the ball in classical mechanics is because they are not just particles. They exhibit characteristics of both waves and particles, a phenomenon known as the wave-particle duality. The basic idea is that light and other kinds of waves are made up of little particles called photons. Furthermore, matter has a wavelength nature linked to it, whereas everything else, including both light and matter, has an angular momentum (spin).

One fundamental feature of quantum mechanics is the superposition of particles. A quantum wave function (Ψ psi) is a mathematical description of all the possible states of a quantum system. The Schrödinger’s equation154 represents how the wave function changes over time, just like the equations of motion in classical mechanics. The physical meaning of the wave function has caused great controversy.

                                                                                                               152 Niels Bohr - Volume II Essays 1932-1957 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, 1958. 153 Elementary particles are particles whose structure is still unknown. They include fermions, the ‘matter particles’ (e.g. quarks, leptons) that have a spin of ½ (multiples of Planck constant); and bosons, the ‘force particles’ (e.g. photons, Higgs bosons) that have spin of a whole number of Planck constant. 154 One form of Schrödinger’s equation: − !!

!!∆!𝜓 + 𝑣𝜓 = 𝑖ℎ !"

!"

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However, it has been proven to be an accurate and powerful tool. According to the most common and most widely accepted interpretation of the wave function, the Copenhagen interpretation155, the wave function is a complex value (the imaginary part of the number results from circular polarisation of photons) and 𝛹 ! ( 𝑎 + 𝑏𝑖 !) gives the probability of finding a particle at a given time and position. Prior to measurements, the system was in superpositions of many states. When we measure or observe the system, the wave function collapses into one definite state because probabilities of observable reality are purely real numbers, whereas the system has both real and imaginary parts This means that some of the information stored in complex numbers will disappear when we make a measurement. This situation is best modelled by the famous thought experiment, the Schrödinger’s cat 156 . One real example of superposition is the interference pattern of electron waves during a double-slit experiment.

An additional important quantum feature is entanglement. A quantum state has the characteristics of a quantum variable at a particular instant. It is a vector ( … ). Entanglement occurs when two or more particles can be described by one quantum state instead of many quantum states. Two particles that have interacted at some point can become correlated and what happens to one particle will also happen to the other. One example is the EPR paradox157. When one particle with a spin of 0 decays, two separate particles with spin -1/2 and +1/2 are formed because they need to add up to a spin of 0. If we know the spin of one of the particles, we can predict that the spin of the other particle is in the opposite direction.

A further crucial idea is the uncertainty principle158. It says that we cannot know the precise position (x) and momentum (p) of a quantum particle at the same time because the more accurate one is, the less precise the other property will be. Here is another example: there are three types of polarisation: linear, circular and elliptical. It is impossible to measure a photon’s linear and circular polarization simultaneously as measuring one disturbs the other. Besides, one other important theory of quantum mechanics is the no-cloning theory, which states that we cannot produce identical copies of unknown quantum states. These two concepts have profound implications on quantum computing, especially quantum cryptography. Quantum computing The area of quantum computing was first introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980 and by Richard Feynman later in 1982. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore published an analysis about the integrated circuit business. He predicted that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits would double every year. His prediction was found to be very accurate and was later known as the Moore’s Law159. (In an interview in 2003, he revisited this and clarified the idea of doubling every 18 months that is often quoted, confirming that it was advanced by Dave House.) However, it has been predicted that we

                                                                                                               155 The main principles of the Copenhagen interpretation were devised by Niels Bohr, Werner Hisenberg and others between the years 1924 and 1927. 156 In this thought experiment, a cat is put in a sealed box with some radioactive substance and a vial of poisonous gas. There is a 50% chance that the substance decays. If one of the atoms decays, the hammer will be released and break the flask. When we open the box, there is 50% chance that the flask is not broken and the cat is alive and there is a 50% chance that the flask is broken and the cat is dead. In other words, the cat is either dead or alive. However, according to quantum mechanics, before we look, the cat is in a superposition of different states. It is both dead and alive. 157 The thought experiment, the EPR paradox, was developed by Alber Einstein, Boris Poldosky and Nathan Rosen to demonstrate the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. 158 Werner Hisernerg first proposed the ideas of the uncertainty principle (∆𝑥∆𝜌 ≥ !

!) in 1927.

159 Gordon E. Moore, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, Electronics, pp. 114–117, 19 April 1965.

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are approaching the physical limit of Moore’s Law as single-atom transistors have been built (transistors cannot be made smaller than this size) 160 and heating problems resulting from cramming many transistors on a single chip. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku said, ‘…in about ten years or so, we will see the collapse of Moore’s Law. In fact, already, already we see a slowing down of Moore’s Law. Computer power simply cannot maintain its rapid exponential rise using standard silicon technology. Intel Corporation has admitted this.’

One alternative to this problem is quantum computing. Digital or traditional computers transfer data using bits. Transistors made from semiconductors are used as logic gates. A transistor act as a switch and current flows through when it is ‘1’ and no current passes through when it is ‘0’. Instead of bits, quantum computers manipulate quantum bits, more commonly known as ‘qubits’. They can be any system that is able to represent a two-dimensional complex vector space, such as electrons, atoms, photons or ions. Qubits, like bits, can also have values of 1s and 0s represented by their charge, polarisation or other properties. Different types of qubits are manipulated by their respective control devices for them to operate as computer memory and processors. For instance, optical or magnetic fields (ion traps) are used to trap ions, whereas quantum dot technology allows scientist to control the flow of electrons through the quantum dot (made of semiconducting material) by applying a small voltage.

According to quantum mechanics, qubits can be in an entangled state and have superpositions, being both 1 and 0 simultaneously. For example, a traditional computer with three bits can form ‘000’, ‘001’, ‘010’, ‘100’, ‘011’, ‘110’, ‘101’ and ‘111’, meaning it can store one of the numbers from 0 to 7. On the other hand, a quantum computer with only three qubits can store all 8 numbers (from 0 to 7) at once. Ψ = 𝑎 000 + 𝑏 001 + 𝑐 010 + 𝑒 100 + 𝑓 011 + 𝑔 110 + ℎ 101 + 𝑖 111 (where a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h and i can be complex numbers) The possibility of being 000 is 𝑎 ! and, therefore, 𝑎 ! + 𝑏 ! +𝑐 ! + 𝑑 ! + 𝑒 ! + 𝑓 ! + 𝑔 ! + ℎ ! + 𝑖 ! = 1. Also, when there are four qubits, 16 combinations

can be stored at a single time. Therefore, the amount of information stored increases exponentially because N qubits can represent 2N quantum states. When we have 100 qubits, 1.27x1030 combinations can be stored. So, if we have around 300 entangled qubits, the amount of combinations stored (2.04x1090) will be greater than the number of atoms in the visible universe, which is estimated to have between 1078 and 1082 atoms. Thus, parallel processing can be achieved.

One problem is that, according to quantum mechanics, if you try to measure them, the qubits will collapse into one definite state, instead of being in superpostition of different states,. The quantum computer in this case will just become a very expensive digital computer but this problem can be solved by entanglement. As explained before, when there are two entangled particles, what happens to one will also happen to the other. If we know the spin or value of one of the particles, we will know that the other qubit has the same spin or value without measuring it.

These two unique features of quantum computing, superposition and entanglement, allow scientists to create high power parallel processing. However, quantum computers are not just faster computers. They do not speed up daily operations (which use classical algorithms), like watching HD videos and writing documents. They only solve some problems faster, such as factorising of large numbers and searching vast databases. The speed of each individual operation does not decrease. Only the number of operations needed to get the results decreases.

                                                                                                               160 The single-atom device was described in Nature Nanotechnology, 19 February 2012.

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A quantum algorithm is a set of instructions to carry out a task that only a quantum computer can achieve. In 1994, Peter Shor161 devised the world’s first quantum algorithm, the Shor’s algorithm, which tells the quantum computer to find the prime factors of a given integer N. Two years later, Luv Glover developed a quantum algorithm that could theoretically speed up database search dramatically. Due to the use of a series of quantum mechanical operations, only N1/2 steps are needed when searching an unstructured list of N items, compared to N steps for a conventional search. These two algorithms have shown the potential of quantum computers. Data encryption Encryption involves encoding information (plaintext) so that only intended recipients can read it. They are usually used alongside encryption keys. In general, there are two types of encryption keys: symmetric keys and public-private key pairs. The symmetric key system shares one key with all parties and requires a secure initial exchange of the key between the parties. The public-private key pair, commonly known as public key cryptography, consists of a public key, which is known to all to verify digital signature or encrypt plaintext and a private key, which is used to decrypt cipher text. The public key system depends on the idea that mathematical operations are easier to perform in one direction compared to the other. One can calculate the public key from the private key but not vice versa. For instance, yz=x, it is easier to find the product (x) of 53 and 67 than finding the factors (y and z) of 3551. In this case, the key system depends on the difficulty of factorising very large numbers into prime numbers. Therefore, the public key system depends on the fact that there is no efficient solution for integer factorisation, discrete logarithm or elliptical curve problems. However, if we are successful in building a proper quantum computer (the current quantum computer can only factorise up to 143162), then the public key system will completely break down as quantum computers will be able to factorise the number in a very short time. Furthermore, with the advances in mathematics, it is possible that there may be an algorithm for factorising large numbers invented. Therefore, due to the popularity of public key systems, encryptions everywhere may become vulnerable to hackers if a quantum computer is built. Banks everywhere use a type of public key system called RSA163 to provide users with private online account access, while web sites use another public key system called the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) to keep their site visible only to secure and approved users. In addition, Wi-Fi networks also use various public keys to keep the networks unbreakable to hackers. Aditionally, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is used by Bitcoin to protect the funds from being spent by other people. Do keep in mind that classical cryptography will not be completely jeopardised even if that is the case. Not all encryption systems depend on factorisation. For instance, a protocol called one-time pad uses a key generated randomly and this will not allow cryptographers to use frequency or structural analysis to decrypt the text. It is also the only system mathematically proven to be perfectly secure.

                                                                                                               161 Peter Shor was working at AT&T’s Bell Labs in New Jersey at that time. 162 11x13=143. 163 RSA was named after its inventors Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman. It provides key distribution, secrecy and digital signature. Digital signature is a signature with the private key on a message and can be checked by anyone who has access to the public key.

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Plaintext: QUANTUMCOMPUTER Key: WOCMRLAPQPDFKSB Cipher text: MICZKFMREBSZDWS

In the example above, I have assigned A to be 0, B to be 1 and so on. We can obtain the cipher text and the plaintext easily if we have the key, such as Q+W=(16+22)(mod26)=12èM and vice versa. This will also work in digital form with zeros and ones (using mod2 instead of mod26). However, the problem with this system is that a new key needs to be generated and delivered securely and directly to the receiver every time a message is sent. It is very inconvenient. Some people suggested that we could generate cryptographic keys that are longer than the number of qubits quantum computers will have in the foreseeable future because a qubit is needed for every bit in a key they are trying to decrypt. Yet, the code will take six times as long to be processed on a classical computer every time we double the key size. Even though such keys will be quantum-immune, they will be ineffective classical cryptography tools. Thus, they will not be efficient encryption systems.

The bright side is that quantum mechanics allows us to create virtually unbreakable encryption code in principle. Quantum cryptography, sometimes known as quantum key distribution (QKD), is the first type of system ever built to depend on the uncertainty principle to ensure security. As the name suggests, it allows the distribution of random keys at a distance, a bit similar to the one-time pad system. It does not transfer any data but can be used with other encryption algorithms for communication. It relies on the intrinsic property of quantum mechanics: any attempts to observe or measure a quantum system will cause the system to collapse. As the polarisation of each individual photon is random, it is impossible to know the unique properties of each photon in advance. The key allows the sender to encode and the receiver to decode the cipher text. The first QKD system is called the BB84 protocol, developed by Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard in 1984. The sender and receiver are connected by a quantum communication channel (e.g. an optical fibre) to transfer quantum states and a public classical channel (e.g. the Internet, phone) to transfer the data. It is unnecessary for the two channels to be secure. Traditionally, the two parties are known as Alice and Bob, while the eavesdropper is known as Eve. First of all, Alice randomly generates a sequence of classical bit values and then encodes each bit in the polarisation state of a photon by randomly using either one of the basis: the standard basis164 or the Hadamard basis165. She then sends the sequence of photons through the quantum communication channel to Bob. At the same time, they use the classical channel to ensure that Bob receives a photon for every one that Alice sends. Bob then measures each photon by choosing a basis randomly. If the chosen basis is the one that Alice has used, the choice of base agrees, Bob will obtain the bit value that Alice sends. If otherwise, the choice of base disagrees, Bob will only have 50% chance to obtain a value that matches the one that Alice sends because output will be random. Therefore, on average, 75% of Bob’s measurements will agree with the corresponding value sent by Alice. They cannot reveal the bit values they measured to each other, as it would also become known to Eve. So, Bob sends a stream of bits through the classical channel indicating which basis he has used to measure which photon. Through cross-referencing, Alice sends a stream of bits back to Bob telling him for which photon he has used the correct basis. They then discard the bits which differ from

                                                                                                               164 The standard basis (rectilinear basis +): 0è ↑ (0°) 1è → (90°) 165 The Hadamard basis (diagonal basis x): 0è ↗ (45°)   = ( ↑ + → ) 1è ↘ (135°)  = ( → − ↑ )

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their choice of base and they now have shared bits that are known only to them. Next they verify the security by using a subset of the bits and should obtain 100% accuracy. Finally, they can use the remaining bits to form a cryptographic key for further communication. As previously mentioned, qubits cannot be copied (the no-cloning theorem) and one cannot determine which basis is used to encode. Alice and Bob only exchange information on the choice of basis over the classical channel. Thereby, Eve must use the quantum communication channel to intercept the key. She can align a polariser in the same direction as 1 or 0 and she will get 50% of the bits and be able to measure 50% of the photons sent from Alice correctly. As Eve does not know the sequence of basises, she has to randomly pick one basis. She will choose the wrong basis 50% of the time and change the polarisation of the photons that are then sent to Bob. 75% of the photons will be in the same state as they were when Alice sent them. Therefore, the probability of Bob’s measurements agreeing with the value from Alice will be 62.5% instead of 75% and Alice and Bob will realise that there is an eavesdropper. Several companies are already selling quantum cryptographic systems for private use. The reason that quantum cryptography has attracted so much attention is because it is believed to be perfectly secure even against eavesdroppers who own a quantum computer. Therefore, some people think that it is the future of cryptography against quantum computers. However, this is only theory. In practice, there are several limitations to quantum cryptography. It is very slow and works only at a short distance (a maximum distance of 90 miles to this date). Furthermore, it has been proven that quantum cryptography is not 100% secure as previously believed. Studies have shown that there may be possible ways to break the system. In addition, there are other classical protocols based on more difficult mathematical problems that quantum computers cannot solve. They can be used instead of quantum cryptography, for example the McEliece protocol. McEliece is a protocol that depends on NP-hard (Non-deterministic polynomial-time hard) problems. It has not been proven that it is completely secure against quantum computers but scientists have strong evidence to believe that NP-hard problems cannot be solved by quantum computers easily. McEliece belongs to a new area of research called post-quantum cryptography that has already emerged in recent years. It focuses on finding and developing cryptographic systems that will not be affected by classical or quantum computers. The research is based on six main cryptographic systems, including lattice-based, hash-based, code-based, multivariate-quadratic-equations cryptographies, supersingular isogeny Diffie–Hellman key exchange (SIDH) and symmetric key quantum resistance. One of the advantages of adopting post-quantum cryptography over quantum cryptography is that no new infrastructure is needed for the Internet and other communication channels. Computer software can be easily updated. This will cost much less than sending quantum satellites into space. Conclusion If a practical quantum computer is invented in the future, it can be said that many forms of communication encrypted by the public-key system will no longer be secure. If this is the case, the debate will become which cryptographic system should be used.

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It is estimated that a quantum computer with 3000 qubits can break an RSA encryption of 1024 bits easily. However, to this date, a quantum computer has only 512 qubits at most (512-qubit D-Wave Two quantum computer, May 2013) and it is still largely theoretical. According to an interview in 2013, Peter Shor said that “we do not have to worry about a real quantum computer for the next five to ten years, or perhaps beyond that.” However, as to the question of whether quantum computers will be commonplace, Shor said, ‘I’m not sure they will ever take off. You are not going to have a quantum computer on your desk – they have to be kept at 0.15 Kelvin for a start.’ The biggest challenge to creating a practical quantum computer remains how to remove quantum decoherence from interactions with the environment.

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Was the recent mining boom in Australia good or bad for tourism and what does the future hold?

By Will Donlan, U6 Southwood Australia boasts one of the largest capital economies in the world. With a nominal GDP of around US$ 1.5 trillion, in 2012 it was ranked as the twelfth largest economy in the world. Of this figure, it has been estimated that US$ 258.8 billion in 2012166, was a result of Australia’s large export sector. Rich in minerals, there have been five major mining booms in Australia (the most recent only coming to a halt as of late), each of which has provided ammunition for the economy to carry on growing, and also dampening the effects of any recessions. Valuable trading links with top emerging economies have been made, particularly with China, receiving 29.5% 167 of Australia’s total exports. Controversy exists among economists however as to whether the large focus on exports is actually beneficial to the economy, or could lead to a situation where other industries, such as tourism, could end up experiencing a collapse. Over the past decade, the resources boom has been a major contributing factor to the appreciation of the exchange rate. As minerals are found, the government and private firms invest in capital equipment. From 2011, $133 billion has been spent on new resource projects, involving new methods of improved extraction, as well as improved transportation systems.168 As a result, there is a shift to the right in the supply curve for Australian mining (Figure 1). Increased ease of extraction and transportation means the process happens at greater speed, leading to less time occupied per unit of resource. This means that workers spend less time per unit produced, so they require a smaller wage. As a result, cost per unit decreases, so more goods can be sold to emerging economies. This improves the exchange rate and consequently, exports become cheaper for foreign interest, leading to increased demand for exports. This increase in the demand for exports helps to reduce the current account deficit and also stimulate the Australian economy. Figure 1 However, whilst export-led growth is often seen as a primary objective for national economies, in practice the mining industry in Australia struggles to control the exchange rate well. As mentioned earlier, the mining in Australia experiences periods of ‘boom’, where large numbers of resources are found during a certain period of time. As a result, this export led growth cannot always be as desirable in

                                                                                                               166 C.I.A. 2012 167 C.I.A. 2012 168 Carrington, 2011

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application as theory. Exports (X) are a component of aggregate demand (C + I + G + (X-M) = AD). If exports increase, this will shift aggregate demand to the right (Figure 2). However, there comes a point when such a period of boom can become inflationary, (the steeper the AS curve, the more inflationary), which means that the goods end up becoming less affordable, as national inflation becomes higher than the rate of inflation in countries to which Australia is exporting. This serves to appreciate the exchange rate, which is having a knock-on effect in the tourism industry. Figure 2 According to recent statistics, the mining boom causes on average a 0.51% drop in tourism every year (electronic source). The tourism industry is an important sector in the Australian economy. In 2010-11, 8.0% of Australia’s total export earnings came from the tourism industry. There were 5.9 million visitors to Australia from 2010-11. Unsurprisingly, this sector employs a substantial number of workers. Of the 513,700 people employed in tourism from 2010 to 2011, 43.7 % were part time. An appreciating Australian dollar, caused in part by the increase in the export market, impacts the tourism industry greatly. The strong Australian dollar creates a disincentive for foreign tourists to visit Australia on holiday because they are now not getting as many Australian dollars for their respective currencies. Consequently the demand for holidays to Australia decreases and this leads to a reduction in the profits of the Australian tourism industry. Furthermore, it can lead to a rise in demand for substitute holiday destinations such as Asia, which has the same attractions of a hot climate and tropical beaches. However, the demand for substitute holiday destinations depends on the price elasticity of demand for holidays to Australia. Australia has many unique attractions such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Harbour Bridge, which mean that tourists feel they can only see these unique places in Australia, making the demand more price inelastic. Therefore demand might not decrease with currency fluctuations. Furthermore, the demand for leisure travel for Australian tourists has in fact remained high because the mining boom has stimulated the economy. Therefore more residents are employed with higher incomes and so have more disposable income to spend on holidays. In fact, domestic travel has increased by 0.49% per annum. However, the figure for outbound leisure travel is 1.15% per annum. Therefore, in this case the net change in travel is actually increasing the balance of payments deficit169.

                                                                                                               169 Dr Tien Duc Pham, 2013

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The mining industry creates immense positives on the surface due to the employment it creates. For example, the government gave the green light for Arrow Energy gas plant 170 . Whilst improving transportation links with a 9.45 kilometre underwater pipeline (see Figure 1 for consequences), 3,715 jobs were created in the industry, with a further 600 operational roles. This serves to improve the unemployment rate in Australia, which is unfortunately growing slightly. Unemployment in Australia happens to be at a ten year high, 6.4%. However, this idea drastically conflicts with the new jobs created by the mining industry. In a mining boom, there is the assumption that more jobs are created. However this is not always the case. For one, the mining sector actually employs very few compared to the tourism industry. Mining only employs around 1.9% of the total workforce. This is obviously a lot lower than the tourism sector, so although jobs are being made, the impact of business travel and demand from FIFO mining workers is leading to competition for infrastructure with people who travel for leisure, in particular accommodation and aviation. Furthermore, increased demand for these services will allow the producer to raise the price. On average, people in business are more likely to be able to pay the higher fee for travel and accommodation, meaning the market for tourism decreases by a greater amount than originally thought. Large mining towns such as Gladstone have gone through rapid growth phases in recent years, leading to problems with crowding out. CASE STUDY: ARROW ENERGY

• Last year Arrow Energy managed to gain approval from Federal Environment minister Greg Hunt who provided approval to the 17 billion dollar project.

• The gas plant is said to be in the midst of creating 4,000 jobs for the area on Curtis Island, both in construction and operation.

• Minister Greg Hunt at the same time finished off a dredging campaign to shift 3 million cubic metres of sand from the Port of Abbot point area in order to prepare for the two other new coal-loading terminals at the port.

• The final investment decision is due by the end of the year. • Approval for three elements is still required, in its CSG-LNG project: the Surat and Bowen gas

project, and the Bowen Pipeline. • The new jobs that Arrow Energy is set to bring could in fact help offset a “ramping down” of work

on the existing three projects from mid-next year. 171 You could argue, however, that the businessmen and women are in some cases more advantageous for the tourism industry than holiday goers, for although they may be competing against tourists for leisure, their average disposable income may be substantially higher than the average tourist’s. Therefore, although their sole purpose may be business, they are likely to spend more money on tourist activities in a shorter time, even if the percentage of their total income spent on tourist activities may not be as high, thereby still keeping the tourism sector strong. If you were to look in practice at how the businessmen affect the tourism sector, however, they do not provide as much support for the industry as you might expect from the point just made, due to location issues. In Australia, the western areas in particular rely heavily on outback experiences, which is a fairly time-consuming activity, meaning not as many businessman would participate. Not only this, but the fact that it is somewhat of a novelty means that the vast majority of people will only participate once, meaning fresh tourists are needed to keep

                                                                                                               170 Bolling, 2013 171 Bolling, 2013

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these novelty activities alive, not ‘fly in fly out’ businessmen, who will return to the same location a number of times. The mining industry only employs 1.9% of the total workforce. Even in Gladstone, we can see that, although crowding out has started to occur, it is not anywhere near on the scale as is sometimes presented. Even now in Gladstone, over 95% are not employed in the mining sector. Only 4.7% are employed in mining. Whilst this may not take into account the ‘fly in, fly outs’, on a broader scale we can see that the manufacturing industry does dominate. Gladstone for the time being remains very much an industrial port city location172. Figure 3 Whilst changing prices and style of living created by the mining sector can be felt as a knock-on effect in the tourism sector, the housing market is experiencing price stability issues. A main driver of this instability lies in the mining activities occurring. Gladstone is an area which is undergoing one of the most rapid growth phases of any community in Australia, therefore you can expect a number of positive and negative effects, in this case associated with the housing market173. These rising house prices are likely to come about mostly due to the mining industry. Following similar logic to above when describing the way mining effects tourism, investments by the government and private firms into resource extraction and transportation will generate further revenue for the economy, meaning that overall GDP increases, therefore aggregate demand will shift to the right, leading to greater prices, in this case, house prices. But having established that the house prices in areas such as Gladstone are rising, some may argue that in actual fact it is not an entirely bad situation. Rising house prices provide a stimulus to supply. If we compare this to the U.K, a shortage of housing is something that the government really struggles with, introducing subsidies and schemes such as the ‘help to buy’ scheme in an attempt to try and kick-start housing production and, long term, to reduce the pressure on the government to supply. Rising house prices in Gladstone will serve as an incentive for

                                                                                                               172 Electronic source 173 Rolfe, 2013

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investors to set up possible projects, with the aim of making a fast return. This could be seen as essential with Australia’s rising population; the need to make space and remove the burden on the government is immense. Not only this, but current homeowners will be rewarded. With all the problems that arise with businessmen using Gladstone as a stop-off location, rising house prices will give an advantage to the homeowners and Gladstone full-time residents, providing an incentive to keep their property for longer to maximise equity and not to relocate, thus keeping the balance of residents to workers in check. However, these arguments can be problematic because as the median house price rises, unless it is in conjunction with real wages, the amount of home ownership will in turn fall. If home ownership falls, there is still the same demand for accommodation, so the demand for renting houses as opposed to buying them increases. This house price-rise actually favours the businessmen over the residents, due to their higher wages. Furthermore it could discourage population growth due to the fact that the higher living costs in the area would not be sustainable for larger families. Aside from the negative impact on local residents, the development of these natural resources also impacts other sectors of the economy, notably manufacturing. This relationship between the development of natural resources following investment and the decline in other manufacturing or agricultural areas is known as the Dutch disease problem174. The most notable concern with this concept is that manufacturing in Gladstone is by far the biggest economic sector in terms of employment. According to the graph featured above, 22.5% of the total workforce is part of the manufacturing sector. If that were to experience a serious decline, as a result of an increase in the, substantially smaller, mining sector, the net result would most likely be jobs lost. So although the GDP may have risen, Australia’s already growing unemployment may continue to rise, perhaps meaning the government would be forced to provide increased social housing, leading to a rise in the budget deficit. Although there are negatives resulting from the mining industry in both the tourism and the housing sectors, there is a strong relationship between these two sectors and the mining industry that can have immensely positive benefits. If we take the city of Perth for example, previously written off as a less dominant world city, with very little in the way of ground-breaking infrastructure, it has been transformed into a truly cosmopolitan city, sparking increased interest from across the globe. Prior to 2003, Perth’s property market was lagging well behind other big cities in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne). Figure 4

                                                                                                               174 Rolfe, 2013

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Figure 4 175 is a graph showing the relationship between house prices in Perth and the mining employment. We can see a clear correlation in the data whereby between 2002 and 2013, as median prices increase, so too does mining employment in Perth. This can be seen by in 2003, there were around 40,000 employed, with around A$ 200,000 as the median price. As the number of miners employed rose to 100,000 in 2013, the median house price rose to A$ 600,000. Whilst this does not prove that increased mining leads to increase in house prices, it can certainly be used as evidence of a positive correlation between the two. Whilst on the one hand this situation is similar to the one in Gladstone, in Perth we can see big changes occurring in the tourism sector. Perth has become a good location for the families of mining workers to temporarily locate, due to some of its upmarket redevelopments in Belmont and Midland (suburbs in Perth). Rising prices in the housing markets generally signal to the world that the city is prospering176. If the city prospers, so do the people that work there, not just the miners, but also the tourism-based workers. In this instance, the negatives from the mining sector are not taking away from the tourism sector overall, but are actually enhancing it, and giving it the tools to expand by providing a larger, more wealthy crowd to spend on the goods and services it has to offer. Across the country the latest mining boom seems to be somewhat winding down. Some are saying it is over; others saying it still has promise. Whilst I personally believe it is over and, as such, am talking from a position of hindsight, the mining boom brought negatives to the Australian economy, the worst of which was its contribution to the rising exchange rate. However, it brought immense positives by forging strong links with China and Asia, as well as helping Australia through the recessions with more dignity, maintaining a more balanced economy than many other nations. My overriding feeling is that Australia needs a strong mining sector at this time. Mining itself takes up around 19% of the GDP when all related activities are taken into account. If it were to weaken, the toll on Australia services, including tourism, would be drastic, and although we can see that in some ways mining is bad for tourism, if mining were to stop, the effect on tourism would be far more negative than if the sector were to continue as it is. This brings me to my final point: what next? I have discussed the effects the mining boom had and what it brought to the economy of Australia, but following the current boom, what does the future hold? ‘The Bull’ seems to believe the next boom is set to be graphite. Graphite, used predominantly in pencils, is now said to be in demand for a number of exciting applications. There are currently 8 ASX miners involved in the exploration and development of graphite, including Lamboo Resources and Triton Minerals177. CASE STUDY: LAMBOO RESOURCES LIMITED

• Lamboo has set up graphite exploration projects in South Korea • However, it has a varied resource base including gold and copper, two key resources from the

previous mining boom. • Lamboo already has previous success in the industry, when they experienced very promising

drilling results in a South Korean graphite project, prompting investment by firms. • It was announced on July 7th that Lamboo were processing a merger with China Sciences

Hengdate Graphite Company178

                                                                                                               175 Steele, 2014 176 Steele, 2014 177 Kohut, 2014 178 Kohut, 2014

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CASE STUDY: TRITON MINERALS • Triton is known for its gold projects in Western Australia • Investors are being drawn in by Triton’s graphite projects in Mozambique, where Triton has three

active projects179

Following the slump in the graphite industry from one of the main importers of Australia’s resources in 2005, China, the way has been paved for Australia to build on this. The first operational graphite mine for twenty-five years has been opened on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, 30 kilometres from Port Lincoln. The expectation is for three mines to be operating by 2016, with each mine aiming to create around 35,000 tons of graphite concentrate to be exported. Whilst nothing at this stage is set in stone, it is clear that production and processing of the new-age material ‘graphene’ could pave the way for the future of manufacturing. Even though the future of the current boom may be in doubt, Australian mining seems to have a bright future180.  

                                                                                                               179 Kohut, 2014 180 Global graphite demand leads to Oz mines reopening, 2014  

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How does altitude affect heart rate and blood oxygen saturation?

By Jamie Jamieson-Black, U6 Hazelwell

    Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate how altitude affects heart rate and blood oxygen saturation on three subjects. The study took place over eight days on which the subjects walked to the top of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, and down, walking a total distance of 87 km in tough terrain and at high altitude. The temperature varied from 27.4°C (at the start of the route) to -6.6°C (at the very top). I measured heart rate and blood oxygen saturation with a pulse oximeter and the altitude and temperature with an altimeter and thermometer. Overall, the results suggest that heart rate and blood oxygen saturation is effected by altitude. Heart rate increases due to a higher demand for oxygen that is in low supply, therefore the heart has to pump blood around the body much quicker in order to meet the demand. Blood oxygen saturation decreases with altitude gain due to the lower partial pressure of oxygen. This results in a lower percentage of oxygen being absorbed in every red blood cell.

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Introduction In 1944, Aste-Salazar and Hurtado came to the conclusion that the affinity for oxygen decreases at high altitude compared with the affinity for oxygen at sea level. This is because the partial pressure of oxygen decreases at high altitude because as you increase the altitude, there is a decrease in atmospheric pressure. As a result, the air is becoming less dense and there are less oxygen molecules. This means that our bodies have to counteract the decreasing levels of oxygen. One way is to produce more red blood cells, which increases the level of haemoglobin; this does not increase haemoglobin’s affinity for oxygen but just means that more can be carried. However, this can lead to the blood being sticky and viscous and it is more difficult to pump the blood around the body.

Figure 1: Haemoglobin affinity curve Haemoglobin consists of four proteins joined together. When one protein combines with oxygen, it slightly changes the shape of the whole haemoglobin, making it easier for more oxygen molecules to join. This can be shown in the graph opposite. The solid line shows a “normal” haemoglobin curve. However this curve can be shifted right or left due to a number of factors: acidic conditions in the blood, temperature, partial pressure of carbon dioxide and an organic phosphate called 2,3 diphosphoglycerate (DPG). These factors adjust the affinity haemoglobin has for oxygen and a decrease in all of the above would shift the curve to the left. Altitude also affects the haemoglobin curve. It does so because when our body reacts to the increase in altitude, there is an increase in 2,3 DPG. DPG affects the affinity for oxygen by directly affecting the binding of haemoglobin and the intracellular pH (Bohr effect). Altitude has long term effects on the body and, more importantly, the mind. Virués-Ortega, Garrido, Javierre and Kloezeman looked into human behaviour and development under high-altitude conditions. What they found was that adults may have a delayed reaction time, and impaired motor function. Altitude also has an effect on the heart rate that I will go into in more detail later on. Heart rate is also affected by other factors: temperature, body position, body size, medication, health, exercise and the body systems. It was important in this investigation that I recorded the majority of these extra factors to ensure I would try to keep them the same every time I took a result.

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Method Subjects In order to gain an appropriate sample size to be representative of the population, the sample size needs to be of a healthy variety and large number, with a control group. I could only manage three people, due to time pressure and logistics, without any control group. As a result, this cannot be representative of the population. The three subjects were myself, a 17 year-old boy who is recreationally fit; John, a 52 year-old man who is athletically fit and with an infibulating heartbeat and taking Warfarin; and Moses, a 30 year-old man, who is a guide on the mountain and experiences high altitude every week. Program

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Procedures and measuring instruments Measuring the heart rate and blood oxygen saturation was done three times a day, just before meal times. A few other results were made during acclimatisation walks. I made sure that it was a resting heart rate I was measuring, to keep all results fair, and made sure the majority of factors affecting heart rate were measured. The altitude and temperature was made by an altimeter and thermometer with a standard deviation of +/- 50m and +/- 1oC, respectively. Results

Figure 3: Readings taken on the mountain

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Figure 4: Oxygen saturation levels

Figure 5: Heart rate

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Statistical analysis In this experiment I used the Spearman’s rank test. This allowed me to see if heart rate and blood oxygen saturation fluctuation was or was not down to altitude. The following null hypotheses were made pre experiment:

1) Altitude has no effect on heart rate 2) Altitude has no effect on blood oxygen saturations

I used the following equation to develop these conclusions. The results I got, above, suggest that firstly, altitude has an effect on heart rate but it is not a significant factor. I conclude this because, of the three subjects, two accepted the 2nd null hypothesis and the third subject was incredibly close to being below the critical value, thus suggesting that something else causes heart rate fluctuation at altitude. Moreover, the second experiment clearly suggests that altitude does influence the percentage of oxygen saturation found in red blood cells. Using the Spearman’s rank test I am able to show that the correlation coefficient is clearly a higher number than the critical value and that all subjects showed a negative correlation between an increase in altitude and a decrease in blood oxygen saturation. Discussion Warfarin One of the three subjects (John) was taking Warfarin. Warfarin is an anticoagulant medicine that prevents blood clotting (thrombosis). The result of this is having ‘thinner’ blood, which increases the time to clot blood. The drug is able to do this because it slows the production of Vitamin K. This vitamin allows the body to clot over wounds; a slower production of this results in an increase in time to clot. So could this affect blood oxygen saturation and heart rate at altitude? A recent study suggests that International Normalised Ratio (INR) for a Warfarin patient is 2.7 times more likely to be below the INR value after a visit to altitude. This is may be due to altitude-induced alterations in coagulation. The altitude alterations may increases the volume of Vitamin K produced. However, another cause for the decrease in INR could be the fact that the blood is thicker with red blood cells. It is well known that when the body is acclimatising, red blood cell production increases in the bone marrow as the hemoglobin struggles to have a higher affinity for oxygen. The United States Antarctic Program believes that an acclimatised person has up to 50% more red blood cells after a visit to altitude. So one theory could be that by thinning the blood you can allow more red blood cells to be produced, therefore counteracting the use of Warfarin but increasing the oxygen saturation in the blood. The results collected above also suggest that, because John managed to attain a higher blood oxygen saturation level than Moses, who ascends to high altitudes most weeks. However, due to little investigation in this area and a small sample size, a conclusion cannot be drawn.

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Heart rate The results suggest that with an increase in altitude there is a debatable increase in heart rate. Research scientists in this field suggest this may be due to a decrease in oxygen levels. This would increase the heart rate because haemoglobin’s affinity for oxygen cannot change immediately. As a result due to a lower partial pressure of oxygen, less oxygen is getting around the body. Therefore the heart has to pump faster in order to supply the brain and muscles with sufficient levels of oxygen. Heart rate may also increase due to the temperature. As altitude increases, the temperature gets colder and colder and, as a result, the heart has to work harder to keep the body’s temperature constant and, as a result, it has to increase its heart rate. This helps to warm the colder parts of the body (hands and feet). The heartbeat is controlled by the Sinoatrial Node (SAN); it is, effectively, the pacemaker of the heart. It is here where the initial stimulus for contraction originates. The SAN sets the basic rhythm for the beat of the heart and acts as the pacemaker. The heart is myogenic and, as a result, the contraction is initiated from within the muscle itself. The SAN sends out a wave of electrical activity, which spreads out across the right atrium, causing it to contract. Non-conductive tissue prevents any electrical current from causing any other contractions. The wave of electricity is then passed through a second node, the Atrioventricular Node (AVN). This delays the electrical impulses for a second and then continues the electrical wave. This short pause allows the ventricles to fill up and to create a bigger pressure gradient with the arteries. The electrical impulses work their way to the purkinji fibers, they contract the bottom of the ventricle and work their way up to expel the blood out of the heart and into the arteries. Blood oxygen saturation The results gathered suggest that blood oxygen saturation decreases with an increase in altitude. This may be because an increase in altitude decreases the partial pressure of oxygen and leads to a smaller volume of oxygen being absorbed due to haemoglobin’s lower affinity for oxygen at a lower partial pressure. Furthermore, in a study conducted in 2000, three scientists showed the variability of haemoglobin’s affinity for oxygen in three toads at different altitudes. It clearly shows that haemoglobin’s affinity for oxygen is higher in a toad that lives at 4100m compared to a toad that lives at sea level. This could be related to humans: a person that lives at high altitude has a high affinity for oxygen and as result is less affected by an altitude increase. Limitations This experiment had a number of limitations, which means that full conclusions cannot be drawn from the data. One of these limitations was the sample size, in that three subjects cannot represent the population because they may be anomalies. However, they can give us an indication of what results we may expect from further investigation. Furthermore, calibrating the pulse oximeter and altimeter was hard to do and, as a result, may have affected the results. Moreover, due to the extreme cold towards the top, the devices also started to fail and recording was much harder to do at such high altitudes.

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Conclusion Blood oxygen saturation and heart rate have interested scientists worldwide for years. Today we are still learning the fine detailed changes that happen at altitude. In this experiment I have concluded that there is a debatable association between altitude and heart rate, as there is strong evidence suggesting that heart rate does increase with an increase in altitude. However, a number of factors affect heart rate and so they may be the cause of the higher or lower heart rate. Moreover, I also believe that with an increase in altitude there is a decrease in blood oxygen saturation. The results obtained in this investigation support this statement. However, due to the relatively small sample size, conclusive results cannot be drawn from this experiment.

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Is the nanotechnology paradigm shift leading to the emergence of nanomachines a double-edged sword?

By Christian Johnston, U6 Leconfield

"In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines." George Dyson Figure 1 Introduction to nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale and is taken as the scale range 1 to 100 nm. ‘Nano’ is a prefix for dwarf in Greek and by comparison, typical Carbon-Carbon bonds are 0.15nm long and a DNA double helix has a radius of 1 nm. On the other hand, the smallest cellular organisms, such as bacteria are around 200 nm in length. In a comparison easier to grasp, the comparative size of a nanometer to a meter is the same as a marble to the earth. One factor we must note is that at this scale, the drastic effects of quantum theory come into effect and so change the properties of the materials. An example is copper, which is opaque in bulk but becomes transparent at the nanoscale.181

                                                                                                               181 Wikipedia

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Figure 2 A trend that will have profound implications in the 21st century is the definitive movement towards miniaturisation. This involves both mechanical and electrical technologies decreasing in size at an exponential rate. At present, the size of technology is shrinking by a factor of 4 per dimension per decade182. At this rate the sizes for most technologies will be in the nanometer range by 2020183. Nanotechnology is the driving force behind this and has been backed by exponential growth in the number of nanotechnology citation and filed patents in the last 30 years. Investment in the industry has been overwhelming; the USA has invested 3.7 billion dollars, the European Union 1.2 billion and Japan 750 million dollars184. Despite this, nanotechnology raises many of the same concerns as any new technology, including concerns about the health, environmental and social impacts of nanoparticles, and their potential effects on global economics, as well as speculation about doomsday scenarios such as gray goo or global warfare. These concerns have led to a debate among environmental groups and governments about whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted due to its dramatic potential to tip the balance of nature. Paradigm shift and the law of accelerating returns A paradigm shift is “a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science”185. When Copernicus proved that the earth rotates around the sun, this created a paradigm shift as it forced a new way of thinking about our surroundings and how we approach challenges. Another example is the transition between the Newtonian view of physics and the Einsteinian relativistic view186.

                                                                                                               182 Kurzweil, The Law of Accelerating Returns, 2001 183 Kurzweil, The Law of Accelerating Returns, 2001 184 Morrison, 2006 185 Kuhn, 2014 186 Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, 2005

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The life cycle of a paradigm (each paradigm develops in 3 stages)187 1. Slow growth 2. Rapid growth 3. A leveling off as the paradigm matures

The progression of these three stages creates a curve which is shaped like an S, when plotting time against a dependent variable.

Figure 3: showing the 3 stages of the natural life cycle of a paradigm leading to a paradigm shift. On the diagram there are 4 phases but the top 2 are really just one. A paradigm shift occurs when exponential growth is exhausted and the shift allows the growth to continue. This has been most obviously shown through the lifecycle of the computer where there have already been 5 paradigms: electromechanical calculators, relay-based computing, vacuum tubes, discrete transistors and integrated circuits. The exponential growth in the number of transistors per chip, known as Moore's law is coming to the end and is expected to be over by 2030 as the exponential growth becomes exhausted188. Gordan Moore stated: "It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.” In reality, nobody knows the limitations of Moore’s law as many futurists believe different theories about how it will continue, but one thing they all agree on is that there must be a paradigm shift to allow this exponential growth to continue. This may be in the form of quantum computing, nanomachines, DNA computing, 3D molecular computing or bistable molecules, to name a few. Ray Kurzweil, in his book “The Technological Singularity”189 speaks of ‘The Law of Accelerating Returns’ which means that the rate of change in a variety of evolutionary systems tends to increase exponentially. In other words, technological evolution is increasing at an exponential rate, which he says will lead to the technological singularity; a period where progress in technology occurs almost instantly.                                                                                                                187 Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, 2005 188 Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, 2005 189 Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, 2005

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Figure 4: shows the time difference between major inventions or key events on a logarithmic plot to show the exponentially decreasing time between each one. This shows the journey to the singularity where progress in technology occurs almost instantly. Molecular nanotechnology Molecular assemblers “The revolution in nanotechnology however will ultimately enable us to redesign and rebuild, molecule by molecule, our bodies and brains and the world in which we interact” Ray Kurzweil Molecular assemblers are machines which are able to assemble other molecules given instructions, energy, and a supply of tiny "building blocks", i.e. raw materials to work with190. If we look at the definition of a machine; “any system, usually of rigid bodies, formed and connected to alter, transmit, and direct applied forces in a predetermined manner to accomplish a specific objective”191. They will be able to bond atoms together in any stable pattern, adding a few at a time until a complex structure is complete.

                                                                                                               190 Escoffier, 2006 191 Drexler, 1986

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Therefore, what is created is only bound by the physical and biological laws of nature. Arranged in one way carbon atoms make pencils and arranged in other ways make diamonds. The ability to arrange atoms is at the heart of all science and technology.

Figure 5 In cellular biology the ribosome demonstrates the essential principles of a molecular assembler. Working within a cell it reads strands of RNA as its instructions and assembles specific large protein molecules out of more fundamental parts. With gene machines to help write DNA, they can direct cells to build any protein they can design. But the knowledge they are lacking is how to design DNA chains that will fold up to make proteins of the right shape and function. The number of ways of folding a protein is astronomical. Protein machines combine the splitting and joining powers of enzymes with the versatility and programmability of ribosomes. Disassembler “Nanotechnology has given us the tools… to play with the ultimate toy box of nature- atoms and molecules. Everything is made from it… The possibilities to create new things appear limitless” Horst Stormer A disassembler will be able to disassemble an object; recording its structure, atom by atom and then a nanomachine can direct the assembly of perfect copies. It is thought that if a machine can rearrange atoms in order to build new materials, it should also be able to build copies of itself192. From this there are clear benefits but also potential dangers. An example of a benefit of these nanomachines is that they will be able to solve the problem of global warming leading from the greenhouse effect. Nanomachines could be released into the atmosphere where they could use

                                                                                                               192 Silby, 2002

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water (H20) and oxygen (02) atoms to build ozone (03) molecules. Replicators could then replicate these ozone molecules to increase the absorbtion of harmful UV light. This however introduces the main problem of these replicators; their reproduction may escalate exponentially, thus making the problem worse by having too much ozone, leading to global cooling, potentially forcing us into an ice age. 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, 8 becomes 16 and after only 39 generations we would have over 549 billion ozone molecules. A large challenge will be how to control this replication, but perfection could herald a new age for humanity with the eradication of poverty and immunity to illness. A possible solution to this problem is: when creating a nanomachine, encode a limitation into the number of replications that can be made. By putting in these precautions, we may be able to control the population of nanomachines while allowing the existence of a number necessary to facilitate some of the advantages mentioned earlier. However, there are dangers that if there were an error in the reproduction or limitation process, it could lead to a mutation of how many times the nanomachine is allowed to replicate, for example, being allowed to replicate 30 times instead of 3 and therefore all the offspring will have the same mutation and so the population can quickly become out of control. There is however a clear way to avoid this problem; do not make nanomachines that can self-replicate. There are strong arguments both sides for doing this. On one hand, it will limit the power of nanomachines and prohibit the availability of a cheap and infinite supply of nanomachines. However, on the other hand, they would be used to cure disease, eradicate global warming and put an end to famine. However, building molecules from the ground up is still a long way off. Its level of difficulty has been compared to putting two Lego blocks together with boxing gloves on. All we can currently do is push large blocks of atoms close together, cross our fingers and hope. The development of nanomachines will allow us to take off the boxing gloves and put the Lego blocks together accurately in the way we see fit. At the department of Engineering at the University of Leeds where fundamental research in disassembly is being carried out, I took a tour around the £6 million cleanroom offering photo-electron microscopes, focused ion-beam lithography and an extensive microwave and high-frequency electronics infrastructure. It is concerned with the manipulation and arrangement of components on the nano scale.193

                                                                                                               193 Leeds University, 2010

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Figure 6 Applications “The role of the infinitely small is infinitely large” Louis Pasteur Military applications During the history of mankind, technological research has advanced the fastest when there is a potential military application. Needless to say, the military applications of nanotechnology are huge and this has the potential to create a problem for mankind, as the applications of nanotechnology in warfare are endless. For example, nanomachines which can self-replicate and have a target to destroy all living organisms could be placed inside an enemy’s country, and exponential reproduction is very hard to control. This could lead to what was termed by K Eric Drexler “Grey Goo”194. Grey Goo (also spelt ‘Gray’) is a hypothetical doomsday scenario involving nanomachines, in which exponentially self-replicating robots consume all matter on earth while replicating further, a scenario that has been called “ecophagy”, which means ‘eating the environment’. Drexler used the term not to indicate colour, but to show the differentiation between superiority in terms of humans and in terms of competitive success195. However, Grey Goo nanomachines need a source of energy to drive their self-replications and they gain this energy from the organic matter they destroy. As a result of this, Grey Goo replication is limiting because the more organic matter that is destroyed, the less remains for energy consumption. After exhausting available organic material in an environment, there would be a nanomachine population crash, stopping it spreading further.

                                                                                                               194 Drexler, 1986 195 Drexler, 1986

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Figure 7: simple illustration showing the potential dangers of self replicating nanomachines leading to Grey Goo. Medical application Some potential applications of nanomachines are early diagnosis and treatment of cancer, biomedical instrumentation, monitoring diabetes and health care. Such nanomachines used in medicine would have to be non-replicating, as replication would needlessly increase device complexity, reduce reliability, and could potentially lead to regressive effects through exponential rates of replication. Drug delivery is one way in which nanomachines may have a profound impact, as currently, pinpointing drug delivery through chemicals is poor as they cannot accurately identify the target cells. This is a problem and is the main cause of side-effects in drugs, as the drugs do not accurately pinpoint the desired cells and so affect other healthy cells. An example is in cancer treatment though chemotherapy, as the chemotherapy targets all rapidly dividing cells, irrespective of whether or not they are healthy. Hair follicles are some of the fastest-growing cells in the body and so are often killed, leading to hair loss.

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Nanotechnology has many promising solutions to this problem: scientists can attach special strands of RNA filled with the chemotherapy drug to gold particles196. In the nanotechnology facilities in Leeds University, I made gold nanoparticles using sodium citrate and gold. These strands are then attracted to the cancer cells and when they collide, the drug is released onto the cancerous cell and it is considerably more accurate. With help from the PHD students, I also sythesised nanobubbles, which are, as the name suggests, very small bubbles. They can be used in drug delivery, as the drug can be stored in the bubbles and can reduce the side effects of drugs by up to 85%.

Figure 8: showing the benefits of nanobubbles in comparison to macro and micro sized bubbles. On the topic of drug delivery, nanoparticles can guide drugs into cell walls and through the BBB (blood-brain barrier). Scientists at McGill University in Montreal demonstrated a pill with structures in the nano-range. The nanopill is small enough to pass through the cell wall and deliver medications directly to targeted structures into the cell. Moreover, Japanese scientists have created nanomachines containing 110 amino-acid molecules, each holding drug molecules. Stuck on the surface of each nanomachine is a peptide that sticks to the target site in the human where the drug is released.197 Another potential application of nanomachines in medicine is assisting white blood cells in tissue repair. Nanomachines can attach themselves to white blood cells where they travel through the blood vessels and can assist in tissue repair at the site of damage198. Nanomaterials The unique properties arising from the effects of quantum mechanics have led to the development of a number of materials with advantageous properties, such as carbon nanotubes, which are an allotrope of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. They conduct electricity better than any known substance; they are stronger than diamond and lighter than aluminum. Another nanomaterial is graphene which is one atom thick, conducts electricity better than silver, conducts heat better than diamond and is stronger                                                                                                                196 Prathapani, 2005 197 Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, 2005 198 Aujla, 2013

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than steel. It would take the force of an elephant balancing on a pencil point to pierce a piece of graphene as thick as plastic-wrap199. Graphene is simply a single sheet of a graphite molecule. Due to its incredible conductive properties, scientists hope to use graphene as a replacement for silicon in microchips. Electrons can travel faster across graphene than silicon and are also subjected to less ‘noise’. It is thought that graphene transistors can work to a frequency of up to 1000GHz, which is 10x the maximum of silicon200. Despite this, there are some negatives with graphene. One is that it is extremely hard to make and it was only discovered by taking off layer after layer using sticky tape from a block of graphite until it was 1 atom thick. Secondly, if spilt in water, a study from the University of California found that, instead of falling to the bottom, it stuck to the organic matter produced by decomposing plants and animals201. This increases the chance of animals, particularly fish, ingesting graphene oxide, which shows high levels of toxicity.

Quantum dots Quantum dots are nanoparticles made of a semiconductor material, that are small enough to exhibit quantum mechanical properties. Electronic characteristics of a quantum dot are closely related to its size and shape. For example, the band gap in a quantum dot, which determines the frequency range of emitted light, is inversely related to its size. Smaller dots appear blue, larger ones red. In LCD screens they are applied as a way of eliminating the need for white LED backlights and colour filters. This provides better colour accuracy, higher colour saturation, improved battery life and is tipped to be used in the screen of the iPhone 6.                                                                                                                199 Scientific American, 2011 200 Drexler, 1986 201 Bourzac, 2014

Figure 9: shows a carbon nanotube and how it is really just a half of a buckminsterfullerene at each end with additional graphene rows in between.

Figure 10: shows a sheet of graphene

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Figure 11: Photoluminescence of quantum dots of 6nm diameter. The material emits different color of light by changing their size. In a quantum dot, electrons are confined in a “box” small enough so that they stop behaving like electrons in a bulk solid, and start behaving like electrons in individual atoms. This is known as quantum confinement. In particular, the electrons occupy discrete energy levels, which, if the temperature is small compared to the difference in energy levels, allows the electrons to be forced into the ground state of the dot. This makes it a promising candidate for a quantum bit; a device for storing and processing information in quantum computers. In a classic system, bits can be in one state or the other, 1 or 0, but quantum mechanics allows the qubit to be in both states at the same time due to a quantum phenomenon known as superposition or entanglement. As a result, each qubit can process far more information than regular bits. In a process called “quantum decoherence” the ambiguity of each qubit is resolved, leaving an unambiguous sequence of ones and zeros. The decohered sequence will leave the solution to the problem. Only one sequence survives the process of decoherence.

Figure 12: this diagram shows the phenomenon of superposition how unlike a normal bit, a Qubit can be in both states at the same time. The diagram and equation is representing how classical bits can only be at one of the poles but a Qubit can be at any point on the surface. Utility fog and foglets Utility fog is a hypothetical use of tiny nanomachines or foglets (nanorobots) that can replicate a physical structure. One example of this is a replacement for seatbelts. The foglets would be invisible to the naked eye and would have arms reaching in several directions and on demand, could arrange themselves into a

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3D lattice arrangement. The arms would allow the foglets to mechanically link to one another and be able to share information. Each foglet would have enough computing power to be able to communicate with its neighbours. The mass of foglets would be widely spread out and the arms not connected, allowing air to flow between them. In the event of a crash, the arms would lock into a solid formation and the result would be to spread the impact of the crash over the whole body of the passenger, greatly reducing the applied force on the body. To the passenger, it would appear the air around them had ‘frozen solid’202

Figure 13: Computer generated image of a foglet with its multiple arms able to connect to other arms. Dangers and considerations Potential risks of nanoparticles can be broadly grouped into three sectors:

• Human health issues • Environmental issues • Ethical and social issues

Human health issues There are many regressive health effects arising from the manufacturing and exposure to nanoparticles, for example nanoparticles used in socks and shoes to limit the amount of foot odours, which are being released when washed. These nanoparticles destroy bacteria in the water pipes, which are an essential component of waste treatment process and irrigation in farms. Furthermore, nanofibres such as carbon nanotubes are used extensively, from aircraft wings to tennis rackets but researchers have found that when gaseous nanotubes are inhaled, the particles settle on the brain and the lungs, which can lead to a number of pulmonary diseases such as fibrosis as well as promoting skin aging203. Moreover, if inhaled in sufficient quantities, carbon nanotubes can be as dangerous as asbestos and can lead to the formation of cancerous cells. A study of workers in a paint factory which used nanoparticles in the paint to increase the properties, found that the workers developed serious lung diseases and nanoparticles were found in their lungs204.

                                                                                                               202 Wikipedia 203 Safelawn, 2011 204 Wikipedia

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Environmental issues There are serious environmental considerations, as the size of nanoparticles allows them to be carried and dispersed by the air and easily enter plant and animals cells and organs. However, at current stages of development, environmentalists state it is “currently impossible to precisely predict or control the ecological impacts of the release of these nano-products into the environment” 205, so our knowledge of the damage is very limited. Ethical and social issues As nanoparticles are not considered a drug they do not fall under the regulation of the Food and Drug Administration. Whether nanotechnology merits special government regulation due to its potential to change the life of millions is a controversial issue. However some organisations, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency have begun to deal with the potential dangers.206 Another significant social question is whether we as a species are ready for such advancement in health, technology and, ultimately, life. Research done by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, whose job it is to ‘protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with consumer products’ found that we are ill-equipped and not yet ready to tackle the problems faced by the high-tech, complex products made using nanotechnology207. In tangent with this social problem is an issue concerning the cost of nanomachines and how nanomachines may lead to exacerbating the disparities in wealth between developed countries and poorer, less developed nations where the new technology is not readily available or affordable. However, on the flip side, nanotechnology could allow us to embrace a post-scarcity economy where food, vaccinations and nanomachines are universally available. This would allow undeveloped countries to focus money on infrastructure development and technological investment to propel them up the development stairway and reduce disparities in wealth.

Conclusion

The nanotechnology paradigm shift offers hope in the future for humanity. The idea that we could one day cure diseases, minimise global warming and eradicate poverty in the world is now a feasible one. If scientists and engineers can overcome the difficulties involved in producing nanomachines through bottom-up molecular nanotechnology then the benefits will be available for us all to reap. However, we must not continue with our eyes closed. Self-replicating machines have the potential to get out of control. Our aims to limit their replicative abilities may be insufficient, and our planet could be in danger of being overrun by machines that can consume anything to reproduce at an exponential rate.

However, the benefits of nanomachines that can create matter are real and cannot be ignored, especially in times of climate change and looming global conflict. Therefore the technology should be pursued with vigor. Despite this, to answer my initial question, the risks in producing self-replicating machines outweigh the benefits. I feel that self-replicating nanomachine technology should not yet be pursued because the birth of nanomachines is definitely a double-edged sword, and one that could prove to be

                                                                                                               205 Benefits and potential hazards of using nanotechnology 206 Ianano 207 Wikipedia

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fatal. For the time being, we should focus our efforts on perfecting machines that can produce the benefits outlined in this article while not building machines that can make copies of themselves, as we, as a race, are not yet ready and as shown by the quote on the title page, nature would be at the mercy of machines. A quote by Geoffrey Sacks summed this up well, “the fate of the planet is not a spectator sport.”

Figure 14: shows an illustration about the effects of grey goo on our planet. “The fate of our planet is not a spectator sport”  

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How safe is Propofol?

By Nicholas Liban, U6 Christowe

What is Propofol? Propofol is a drug found in the group of medicines used for general anaesthesia. General anaesthetics are used for sedation or induction and/or maintenance of unconsciousness. These states of sedation or unconsciousness are useful during surgical or other medical procedures. Propofol is on the World Health Organisation's List of Essential Medicines.

An induction agent is a drug which is used to initially anaesthetise a patient. This is usually during the ‘one arm-brain circulation time’ which is the time taken for the drug to pass from the arm (usual site of injection) to the brain, where the drug takes effect. This is different to an infusion, where, instead of the drug being injected all at once as a bolus, it is gradually injected over time. This method is normally controlled by an automatic infusion pump. Figure 1 There are five main groups of anaesthetic drugs: Barbiturates, Imidazoles, Phenols, Phencyclidines and Benzodiazepines, each categorised by their chemical structure. In this case Propofol belongs in the Phenol category. Chemical makeup Propofol, or Diprivan by its trade name, has the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) nomenclature of 2,6-diisopropylphenol. It has a central benzene ring, hence the ‘-phenol’, and three functional groups attached: two alkyl substituents hence ‘diisoprophyl-’ off the 2nd and 6th carbons and a hydroxyl group on the 1st carbon, ss shown in Figure 2 by its skeletal formula.

Fig.  1  

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Figure 2 Propofol has a relatively low molecular weight of 178.27 compared to other similar induction agents, eg. Ketamine Hydrochloride (HCl) 274.19, Sodium Thiopental 242.34. Propofol is a white ‘milky’ looking drug, as it is suspended in an emulsion of other ingredients such as soya bean oil, medium chain triglycerides, egg lecithin and sodium hydroxide for its pH adjustment, towards alkalinity. For example, a 100ml vial of Propofol contains 1000mg of Propofol. (Fig.1) Mechanism of action The exact mechanism of action of Propofol is not completely understood, however there are a few theories which are backed up by evidence. We know that Propofol definitely potentiates GABAA receptor activity. Gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter which works in the central nervous system (CNS) as a depressor. In a test carried out between Propofol and Pentobarbital (a barbiturate), the results suggest that, ‘propofol attenuates synaptic transmission in the CNS in part by enhancing GABAA-mediated inhibition’, therefore leading the patient to a muscle/CNS relaxed state. This includes relaxation of respiratory muscles, leading to difficulty in self-ventilation. Propofol has been proved to open Cl- channels and induce movement of Cl- ions into cells. This allows the cell to enter a state of hyperpolarisation where the cell is closer to its reverse potential, as seen in figure 3.

Figure 3 Another theory is that Propofol blocks Sodium channels. An experiment on the electrophysiological characteristics of Propofol carried out on rats, showed that voltage dependent sodium channels where altered, therefore restricting their ability to release glutamate. Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, which binds to NMDA and AMPA receptor proteins.

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Alternatives to Propofol Before Propofol, Sodium Thiopental was the main induction agent for many years. A barbiturate with properties such as rapid induction (within 40 seconds), a relatively short action and no pain on injection. Due to its high lipid solubility, Sodium Thiopental can increase metabolic elimination time due to accumulation, after repeat IV doses.

This results in prolonged action and prolonged recovery time from anaesthesia. Ketamine HCL is another popular intravenous induction agent. It is a phencyclidine, with short induction time, medium action time, no pain on injection and ability to be administered by intramuscular route (injection into a muscle). Each agent has properties that distinguish it over another popular agent. Ketamine HCl is particularly useful in patients with hemodynamic compromise eg. a patient who has had plaque atherosclerosis or a cardiac tamponade. Ketamine does not cause any histamine release, however it increases salivary secretion in tracheobronchial regions. Most induction agents lower blood pressure but ketamine does not. Inhalation agents such as Sevoflurane, Isoflurane and Desflurane (all isomers of the ‘flurane’ molecule) can also be used for induction of anaesthesia. These are most often used with children to allow insertion of an intravenous cannula to allow administration of muscle relaxants or other anesthetic agents. Gaseous induction agents are also used in patients with upper respiratory difficulty.

Drug pharmacokinetics The pharmacokinetics of a drug is the movement of a drug within a body, ‘pharma-’ in Greek means drug and ‘kinetic’ means movement. Before injection or infusion intravenously, the concentration of Propofol is high. The moment the drug enters the body it is diluted by the body- specifically H2O. As Propofol is lipid soluble and injected in a lipid emulsion, the drug is immiscible to H2O and cannot dissolve or react - the same way oil and water do not mix. The Propofol travels as a bolus, usually up the arm, and is circulated through the heart, and once the bolus reaches the brain the effect of the drug takes place. The drug will undergo extensive distribution and some will travel straight to the liver, where it is metabolised hepatically. The elimination of Propofol is ten times faster than the elimination of Sodium Thiopental. There is an inter-compartmental model, where the distribution clearance of an intravenous bolus is a measure of the movement of the drug from the central compartment to the lower blood flow. Essentially, the central compartment being tissues that equilibrate with the drug instantaneously, normally in vessel-rich tissue. The tissue with lower blood flow has less highly-perfused vessel-rich tissue and therefore equilibrates slower. The total distribution clearance of Propofol and Sodium Thiopental ranges from 3 to 4 l/min/kg, a value that is approximately 60% to 80% of the normal cardiac output which is ~5 l/min/kg.

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Figure 4 The above graph shows the ‘simulated time course of whole blood levels of Propofol following an induction dose of 2.0 mg/kg. Blood levels required for anesthesia during surgery are 2 to 5 mg/ml, with awakening usually occurring at a blood level lower than 1.5 mg/ml’. From the above graph you can also see that the onset of action is approximately 40 seconds, with the peak effect about 1 minute after injection of the entire drug. It has a total duration of action of about 5-10 minutes, however, this is not the case if the drug is infused. Usual induction doses range between 100-200 mg, dependent on the patient’s mass, age and medical condition. If the drug is infused it has an induction and maintenance effect at 100-200 mcg/kg/min. (Figure 4)

Figure 5

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This is a graph relating to the use of Propofol in the intensive care unit in a hospital (ICU). Created by Professor Steven Shafer, it is ‘anchored in experimental data’. It essentially shows how long a patient can have Propofol and still wake up quickly. The graph is based on the patient reaching MAC (monitored anaesthesia care) sedation, a state where a patient is under sedation and is monitored by an anaesthetist titrating the drug dose. It shows the small difference in awaking time no matter if the patient has had an infusion lasting 10 days or 1 hour; a difference of a few minutes. This is the essential difference between Propofol and other drugs. The above graph (fig.5) is proof that there is no accumulative effect of Propofol in the body despite prolonged infusion. The metabolites of Propofol are excreted in the urine, with 0.3% excreted unchanged. The clearance is 18.8-40.3 ml/kg/min and the elimination half-life is 9.3-69.3 minutes. In the presence of kidney (renal) failure the clearance is decreased. Experimental evidence shows that Propofol has an unusual effect in elderly or very ill patients. In an older or weaker patient, less drug is administered as their body does not have the strength to metabolise the full dose. A sedative Midazolam, a benzodiazepine, has a 50% decrease in dosing in the elderly. In contrast, Propofol has a 20% decrease in dose size, therefore 80% of the normal dose is administered, which is anomalous to other drugs.

Pharmacodynamics The pharmacodynamics is the power of the drug, ‘dynamic’ meaning power in Greek. The dynamics of Propofol are dependent on the blood Propofol concentration. Induction with Propofol is usually followed by apneoa (lack of breathing). When given 2 - 2.5 mg/kg, apneoa lasts less than 30 seconds in 7% of patients, 30 to 60 seconds in 24% of patients, and more than 60 seconds in 12% of patients. Due to the apneoa, patients need to be watched and monitored as their breathing may need to be supported artificially. Propofol causes bronchodilation (dilation of small airways) possibly by a direct effect on bronchial smooth muscle. This is a useful feature in asthmatic patients. The hemodynamics (‘blood flow, motion and equilibrium under the action of external forces’)[18] of Propofol vary. The major effects are arterial hypotension, a 30% percent decrease in blood pressure during spontaneous ventilation (i.e. patient-triggered) and there is minimal change in heart rate. The decrease in blood pressure is mainly due to the reduction in systemic vascular resistance. If there is positive pressure ventilation (i.e. controlled), then there can be a significant decrease in cardiac output and even further arterial hypotension. Gender difference in Propofol use The time taken for waking up after Propofol induction differs between male and female. The possible explanations for this phenomenon are that there is a difference in speed of elimination and differences in inter-compartmental factors. There could be a difference in the sensitivity of plasma concentration in women in comparison with men, therefore leading to a different pharmacodynamic effect.

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Propofol adverse effects Propofol is a powerful intravenous anaesthetic with several dangerous side-effects, ranging from mild to severe and from uncommon to common. The most common but not severe side-effect (appearing in more than 1 in 10 people) is pain on injection. To minimise this adverse effect, local anaesthetic (like Lidocaine 0.1 mg/kg) is mixed with the drug prior to intravenous administration. The severe and common side-effects (appearing in more than 1-10 in 100 people) include hypotension (abnormally low blood pressure) in about 30% of patients, bradycardia (slow heart rate) and respiratory depression (slowing or stopping of breathing with potential for hypoxia). A mild, common side-effect is involuntary spontaneous muscle movement which can mimic epileptic seizures. Uncommon side-effects (appearing in more than 1-1000) are phlebitis (vein inflammation) and vein thrombosis (vein occlusion) in a vessel where Propofol was administered, as well as hypertriglyceridemia (increased triglyceride count). Very uncommon side-effects (in less that 1 of 10,000 patients) include anaphylaxis (allergic reaction) with erythema (redness of tissues on injection), angioedema (rapid swelling of skin and mucosa), bronchospasm (spasm of lower respiratory tract), epilepsy-like symptoms, hyperkalemia (increase in blood potassium level) and fever. Histamine release may also occur. Anaphylaxis to Propofol ‘Anaphylaxis is a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that can develop rapidly.’

As mentioned above, anaphylaxis to Propofol is rare but does happen and can be life threatening. As Propofol in its formulation contains soybean oil and egg lecithin, both potential sources of hypersensitivity, there is some consideration whether it is safe for use in patients with a history of peanut or egg allergy. Although evidence is weak and for eggs the prevalence of allergic reaction to Propofol is approximately 2.3% and has not been shown to be associated with egg allergy, the manufacturer’s product-insert considers egg allergy a contraindication to Propofol administration. In practice, a previous, true, documented egg anaphylaxis would be clinical contraindication. Drug interactions and contraindications There is a long list of drugs that would interact with Propofol. The obvious classes of drugs that will potentiate its action are other sedatives, narcotics or other anaesthetics. All sedatives, whether barbiturate-based or benzodiazepines, will have this effect, eg barbiturates like Phenobarbital, Pentobarbital and Amobarbital and benzodiazepines like Diazepam, Midazolam, Lorazepam, Temazepam, Estazolam and others. Benzodiazepines administered with Propofol have a synergistic effect, ‘an effect arising between two or more agents, entities, factors, or substances that produces an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.’ A study of interaction between intravenous Propofol and Midazolam was conducted in 200 healthy female patients undergoing elective surgery. It determined dose-response curves for each of the drugs and in combination. For hypnosis (being asleep) the synergistic effect of combination of

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these drugs had 1.44 times the potency of the individual agent. The dose of Propofol required to produce anaesthesia was reduced by 52% when administered with Midazolam.

Another class of drugs that can dangerously interact with Propofol is narcotic drugs. They directly depress respiratory centre and in combination with Propofol will potentiate the effect with resulting hypoventilation (inadequate breathing) or apneoa (stopping breathing). For this reason, administration of these drugs is only allowed by a properly trained doctor who has access to artificial ventilation of the lungs and can monitor a patient’s oxygenation. The most commonly used narcotics are Morphine, Fentanyl, Remifentanyl, Alfentanil, Oxycodone. In a randomised study, 40 adults received Propofol sedation supplemented by an increasing dose of Alfentanil used as a pain killer and to keep the patients still on the operating table. All the patients had some degree of respiratory depression, with up to 40% of patients receiving the highest dose of Alfentanil suffering frequent respiratory depression with oxygen saturation falling to less than 90%.

Propofol and Total Intravenous Anaesthesia (TIVA) Due to unique pharmacokinetics, Propofol can be used as a sole anaesthetic by an intravenous continuous infusion. It is called Total Intravenous Anaesthesia and there are many advantages in using this mode of anaesthesia. One of the concerns of using anaesthetic volatile agents (like Isoflurane or Sevoflurane) and gases (like Nitrous Oxide) is environmental pollution. Also, to be able to deliver anaesthesia outside the operating theatre or in a hostile environment including war zones, the ability to administer anaesthetic directly into patients’ circulation supplemented with either oxygen or just air, makes use of unavailable gas cylinders and volatile agent vaporisers (delivery systems) obsolete. This form of anaesthesia is favoured by the military surgical and anaesthetic teams.

Figure 6 The challenges of TIVA are the correct rate of infusion so the patient is anaesthetised and not aware, prevention of reflex movements if patients are not paralysed and adequate pain relief. These three components form the classical triad of anaesthesia. Figure 6 shows a infusion machine, with infusion rate of Propofol at 10ml/h. There are several models of administration of TIVA. Some are based on using Propofol alone, others in combination with short acting narcotics (like Remifentanyl) or muscle relaxants. These models are either

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based on patients’ body weight and age or the more sophisticated use computer models to achieve Target Controlled Infusion (TCI). TCI is an infusion controlled in such a manner as to achieve a user-defined drug concentration in a body compartment or tissue of interest.

Propofol based TIVA techniques offer many advantages, including rapid recovery from anaesthesia, with being awake and being able to care for yourself more quickly than after a conventional volatile anaesthetic. This means that if you come for a small to intermediate operation, you can leave the recovery room and hospital earlier and be able to perform normal tasks quicker. As Propofol has an anti-emetic effect (mentioned here and elsewhere) the overall experience for the patient can be of great benefit. Are all patients fully asleep during TIVA? The danger is that if, during TIVA, when a patient’s muscles are paralysed, he or she will not move voluntarily or even as a reflex if he or she was awake and felt the pain of surgery. Out of nearly 2500 patients, five suffered awareness (being awake and inadequately anaesthetised) during administration of TIVA.

For this reason it is recommended to use a special brainwave detecting monitor (detecting level of suppression of brain activity) during anaesthesia involving TIVA. Intravenous sedation

Propofol is commonly used for sedation to enable minor procedures like investigation of upper and lower gastrointestinal tract with the aid of a flexible fibre-optic scope, investigation of the heart in the catheter laboratory or performance of minor surgery with a supplement of local anaesthesia. This type of sedation can be administered either as intravenous boluses of Propofol or via an infusion pump in a similar way as TIVA. Small amounts of Propofol are used to obtain a sedative effect with ability to communicate with a patient throughout the procedure. A quick recovery follows on termination of such infusion. In recent years Propofol gained a lot of publicity by being blamed for the death of Michael Jackson. He was apparently given it on regular basis as an intravenous sedative to help him go to sleep. Intravenous sedation with Propofol is also commonly employed in intensive care units where patients requiring artificial ventilation (breathing machines) are sedated in this manner to be able to tolerate the breathing tube. The advantage of Propofol here is, again, rapid recovery even after prolonged use, when the patient is deemed ready to be disconnected from the breathing machine. As an example, Michael Schumacher, the Formula 1 racing driver, following his skiing head injury last Christmas, had to be artificially ventilated for several weeks with Propofol infusion-induced coma, which, on stopping, allowed doctors to make an early neurological assessment. “Schumacher 'has responded to instructions' and 'was able to blink during brain tests' as doctors bring him out of his coma, say sources” Prolonged infusion of high doses of Propofol in sick patients can lead to ‘propofol-related infusion syndrome’ (PRIS), with unexplained metabolic acidosis, cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heart beat), acute kidney failure and cardiovascular collapse. It was first noticed in children and can happen in sick adults. There was an association between PRIS and an infusion rate of 4mg/kg/hour and above, delivered for more than 24 hours. Due to this unexplained action, long term Propofol infusion is contraindicated in

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small children and substituted by use of intravenous benzodiazepines. Propofol infusion syndrome occurs when patients have long term sedation (> 4 mg/kg/h over 48 hours) with Propofol. Common in children and very ill patients, it can lead to death via cardiac failure, rhabdomyolysis and metabolic acidosis (to much acid in the blood stream). For this reason Propofol is not licensed for intravenous sedation of children in intensive care units. Addiction to Propofol Propofol, like any other sedative and hypnotic, has dangerous potential of being abused by health professionals and the public at large. Early on when Propofol was introduced, anaesthesiologists noticed that patients were waking up in a state of euphoria, expressing being happy and feeling wonderful and relaxed without residual ‘hangover’: ‘young woman who was emerging from a MAC anesthesia looked at me as though I were a masked Brad Pitt and told me that she felt simply wonderful’. These features of Propofol can easily lead to the drug being abused for recreational purposes. Medical, hospital practitioners have relatively easy access to Propofol. Unfortunately this has led to a high number of anaesthesiologists becoming addicted to the drug, preventing them pursuing their career and being potentially dangerous to patient safety: ‘One addict fell asleep at his desk so often that his lolling forehead became a perpetual bruise. Another was so desperate for a fix that he started trolling through sharps bins for discarded needles with traces of drug to inject’.

Michael J. Jackson and Propofol The most publicised case of Propofol abuse was the untimely death of Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson died of of Propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication. Michael’s autopsy confirmed that three different benzodiazepines, (Lorazepam, Midazolam and Diazepam) and Propofol were in his blood stream. The addition of three central nervous system depressors amplified the effect of Propofol, thereby further increasing the risk of respiratory arrest. Such sedation should only be used with sufficient monitoring equipment such as blood oxygen saturation meters. Micheal Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, was ill-equipped and therefore did not realise Micheal’s oxygen level had plummeted.

Figure 7: Prof. Shafer (left) demonstrating Propofol injection during trial of Dr Murray accused of Michael Jackson’s (right) death.

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Conclusion From the evidence above, Propofol possesses nearly all the requirements of an ideal intravenous anaesthetic agent, both for induction of anaesthesia (putting patients to sleep) and for maintenance (keeping them asleep). It is very fast acting, with short duration and has relatively few side-effects. It can be given as a bolus (one shot) or an infusion over a period of time. Propofol is also very useful for intravenous sedation for short surgical procedures and for sedation of patients on breathing machines in intensive care. Apart from causing pain on injection and, depending on the dose, lowering systemic blood pressure, allergic reactions are rare and it has anti-sickness properties. Having said that, Propofol is a very potent drug, with what is known as a narrow ‘therapeutic window’ (fig.3), meaning that slight overdose can have profound effects on patients’ breathing, with the devastating consequences as described above. Also, addiction to Propofol is one of the dangers of misuse, like with many other sedative and hypnotic drugs. For the reasons stated above, Propofol should be kept away from general public and only administered by a qualified physician, fully trained in anaesthesia and/or sedation, in an environment equipped with oxygen delivery system and full resuscitation equipment. Addendum Use of Propofol in executions Recently Propofol was in the news, again for the wrong reasons. Due to a shortage of Sodium Thiopental in the US and an inability to import the drug from other countries (as it had never been approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration) the US State Correction Departments, in several states where capital punishment is practiced, switched to Propofol. Propofol as a replacement for longer-acting Sodium Thiopental and in combination with other drugs (a ‘three-drug cocktail’) used for capital punishment, proved unsuitable for this purpose and led to several “botched executions”. In view of this, many states have suspended executions altogether and are looking for alternative ways of conducting capital punishment. No medical professionals are involved in administration of these lethal drugs, as it is against the Hippocratic Oath undertaken by every medical practitioner upon qualifying as a doctor.

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Scottish independence: the road to freedom or disaster?

By Cameron Logan, U6 Boyne House

Robert the Bruce once said before the Kingdom of England and Scotland, "For as long as one hundred of us shall remain alive, we shall never in any wise consent submit to the rule of the English, for it is not for glory we fight, nor riches, or for honour, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life."208 This was proclaimed during the last attempt at Scottish Independence away from the Kingdom of the English Realm, at the Declaration of Arbroath on April 6th 1320. However, centuries come and go and are laid upon each other like scrolls of paper, keeping record to remember the ancestors and generations of actions that have changed the modern United Kingdom today. There is a phrase that is echoed quite often; “history repeats itself”. The most prominent people to look at are the Jewish Race. Centuries of purges against the religion and its people seem to repeat themselves continuously. But is it now true for this phrase, this theory based only on theories to become a reality for Scotland? In 1320, the Scottish people did not need to hold a national referendum, nor make their disputes civilised. Yet 694 years later the National Referendum on Scottish Independence will take place on the 18th September 2014. In this essay I will discuss two of the most hotly debated issues when considering the question of Independence for Scotland. These are the key issues of economy and defence. I will evaluate, based upon these critical issues, whether or not this referendum will lead Scotland to a successful independence or to failure, as well as looking at the collateral damage or benefits that the potential referendum outcomes will promote. I as the author of this essay will include some of my own beliefs and points, but it should be stressed that these are my own views. This essay is written for all members of the public, regardless of their political knowledge, and I aim to give the reader a better understanding of the Scottish Referendum's military and economic landscape. Historical context For those who are not as familiar with the context as others may be, a quick summary of the past 15 years is crucial to understanding the rest of this essay. The Scottish Government was founded in 1999 through the Devolution Act. This Act allows sovereignty from the UK’s government (Houses of Parliament) to be spread to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Therefore, a Welsh and Northern Irish Assembly was created, and a Scottish Parliament was formed. The Scots were granted a Parliamentary status due to the fact that they used to rule with a government before merging theirs and the kingdom of England’s together when Great Britain was created. This devolution from Westminster allows the Scottish Government to rule accordingly, however numerous powers, like military decisions remain with Westminster. Devolution can also be disassembled at any time, although through doing this the British Government would be considered as being undemocratic. The Scottish government is decided every 4 years and uses the voting system AMS (Additional Member System). This is a hybrid voting system with a mixture of FPTP (First Past The Post) which is the normal voting system in Britain, and the List system. The public is given 2 votes; one for the MSP, and one for the list of MSPs that run their region. Nearly in all cases this voting system creates a coalition government where two political parties join together and run the country. This changed however in 2011 when the SNP (Scottish National Party) led by Alex Salmond

                                                                                                               208 Robert The Bruce Quote – Liberty-Tree.ca

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won the first ever majority government in history under AMS. The SNP had secured 69 seats209 giving them an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament. This allowed for Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond to review his manifesto and on the 21st March 2013 the Referendum on Scottish Independence was announced. This leads us to the present, where we shall discuss the problems or benefits that independence may bring, and whether it will create a fully functioning Independent Scotland, or if it is a road to nowhere. Economical factors Against independence One key question which requires clarification for all those with the responsibility for voting is that of what will happen to the Scottish economy? In Salmond’s ‘Scotland’s Future’ or ‘White Paper’ he states “Four currency options were examined by the Fiscal Commission – the continued use of Sterling (pegged and flexible), the creation of a Scottish currency and membership of the Euro.”210 However, the Bank of England, keepers of the Pound Sterling have conversed with the Scottish Government that they will not keep the pound if Scotland becomes independent. In the first Salmond versus Darling debate, dated 5th August 2014, Darling stated that “You can have a formal currency union…or you can have independence, but not both.”211 Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne does not believe a currency union would work, certainly not as well as the situation currently is with Scotland as a part of the UK. I believe that Salmond and the SNP do not believe in the creation of a new Scottish currency based on the evidence that Salmond gave during the first ‘Salmond versus Darling Debate’ which was exactly this: nothing. Salmond did not delve further into the creation of a new Scottish currency and did not explain or speak knowledgably about the Euro, nor of what would happen if Scotland were denied Sterling. How is it that Scotland should believe in the ‘White Paper’ and the SNP when the SNP does not appear to recognise or trust the possibilities open to Scots themselves? How can we, as voters trust the SNP, in leading Scotland into a successful independent country? Furthermore, wouldn’t keeping hold of the Pound Sterling make Scotland still dependent upon England through “significant limits on its economic sovereignty?”212 Similarly, there is a real problem with joining the Euro, as in the 1990s the SNP expected Britain to eventually join the new currency in the hope that it would loosen the connection between the UK and Scotland. Yet now that the Euro has failed in many countries, due to its fixed rate, many nations are now suffering or facing bankruptcy. Yet Salmond proposes that this currency option could potentially be Scotland’s saviour.

Another pertinent point to make about Scotland’s economy is welfare. Alex Salmond and the rest of the SNP have stated that the National Health Service, for example, will still run just as effectively as it is at the moment while being part of the United Kingdom. However, this is yet to be quantified or simply explained. From the perspective of the average person it looks from a financial dimension that there would be less money coming into Scotland as an independent country. There are 31 million taxpayers across the UK who pay to keep public services running.213 Scotland benefits from this because spending is 10% higher per head in Scotland than in most parts of the UK. Over time this would mean that each person in Scotland is worth £1400 more if they stay in the UK. It is already well known that taxes would                                                                                                                209 Scottish Election: SNP wins election – BBC, dated 6 May 2011 210 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 110 211 First Salmond Versus Darling debate, dated 5 August 2014 212 ‘The Road to Referendum’ Novel – By Ian Macwhirter, Page 37 213 You Decide Website - www.youdecide2014.uk/home/use-nhs/

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be higher if Scotland went Independent. In order to maintain public services as they are now, Salmond and the SNP would have to raise taxes, meaning a 28% increase on the basic income tax as well as an increase of VAT by 26% and all main taxes e.g. on alcohol and fuel, by 40%.214 As an example, I worked out the highest current cost of unleaded fuel per litre in Musselburgh, Edinburgh is approximately £1.32215 dated 25th August 2014. Increase that by 40% and you reach £1.85. Therefore 20 litres could cost £36.96 compared to the standard £26.40 in Edinburgh at the moment. So a road journey from London to Edinburgh could cost more that the Scots could realistically afford or be willing to pay.

Critics of pro independence argue that Scotland will not economically or financially benefit. The possibility of the oil industry in the UK today splitting apart if Independence follows through is still a serious concern. The Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that “Because we are a top 10 economy we can afford the tax allowances, the investment, the long-term structure that is necessary to make sure we recover as much from the North Sea as possible.”216 This is only possible because we are part of the UK. Furthermore, in the second Salmond versus Darling debate, dated 25th August 2014, the currency issue was brought up again, where Darling stated that the strength and safety of the Scottish Economy depend on the issue of currency. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne when addressing MPs has announced again that a currency union with Scotland and the UK that is not going to happen. “There will be no currency union if Scotland becomes independent, no ifs, no buts.” He went on to further emphasise that "As Chancellor of the Exchequer it is my obligation to explain that no currency arrangement under independence will be the same as the strength and stability of one UK, with one UK pound.”217 Alistair Darling reinforced this exasperatingly in both of his debates with Alex Salmond. Pro independence

Despite this, the SNP have come up with reasons that they say can stabilise Scotland’s economy and finance. For example, in the ‘White Paper’ the SNP state “As a result of the recession, Scotland will inherit challenging fiscal positions that will require careful stewardship in the years immediately following independence”.218 Surely then the best thing to do would be to remain in the UK, at least until the deficit is less threatening? However, the SNP have stated that as a matter of fact tax revenue will be determined on production. For example, gas and oil in the North Sea will either generate £6.8 Billion in 2016/2017 if production stays the same, or increase to £7.9 Billion if production is increased. Through this the SNP have determined the expenditure on other areas of Scotland. They have determined that in 2016/2017 under the current constitutional arrangements, Scotland will spend £3 Billion on Defence,219 whereas currently the total expenditure for Defence in the UK is £43.2 Billion.220 To those who disagree with military spending then this is surely a good thing. As well as this, between 2016/2017 Scotland’s deficit is to fall between 1.6% - 2.4% of GDP; not including the public share of UK public sector debt. This is in contrast to the UK’s prediction by the ‘Office for Budget Responsibility’, which states that the UK’s GDP is estimated to be at 3.4% GDP.221 Therefore this shows that Scotland would have a better net fiscal balance than the UK in 2016/2017, the first years of independence. Furthermore the SNP have declared that if they are voted into an independent government in 2016, then there will be an environment where taxes                                                                                                                214You Decide Website - www.youdecide2014.uk/home/use-nhs/ 215 PetrolPrices.com, dated 25 August 2014 216 Scottish Independence: UK economy crucial to North Sea Oil – The Telegraph, dated 24 February 2014 217 Scottish Independence: Osborne tells MP’s currency union has been ruled out – BBC, dated 14 May 2014 218 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 72 219 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 75 220 ukpublicspending.co.uk – Prediction of 2016 spending on Defence 221 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 76

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are not only efficient but heated, supporting a “reindustrialisation” of Scotland through “increasing manufacturing activity”, increasing economic activity in local areas and increasing internationalisation across the Scottish economic landscape.222 In order to make this happen, the Scottish Government have announced that they will interact and seek advice from the trade unions, create more jobs that have a steady minimum and living wage and to make work more attractive by offering skills, education and opportunity.223

Recently, Salmond himself has defied Osborne and has described his speech on a no currency union as "casual Westminster dismissal";224 and fought back against President Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the EU. He described in an interview that an Independent Scotland joining the EU would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible”225 on the grounds that it would be hard to have all members of the EU recognise a new State attempting to join, that was previously part of an already affiliated EU member and even gave Spain un-acknowledging Kosovo as an example. Salmond hit back, arguing that "The decision is one for member states, but not to recognise the democratic will of Scotland would run counter to the entire EU ideal of democratic expression and inclusion.”226 I personally feel that as a previous member of the EU, Scotland if granted Independence should be allowed access to the EU without difficulty as it has already shown its allegiance beforehand as part of the UK; not to forget that this small nation contributed in part to the actual being of both the Europe that we know today and the resultant EU. Defence of the realms Against independence Another vitally important area to cover in Scottish Independence is Defence. Scotland, when voting the SNP into power with a majority government in 2011 not only chose to make a referendum on Independence a reality, but also through secondary influences, deal with the question of defence. Should Scotland become independent the issue of a separate military away from the United Kingdom must be addressed. Whether to have a separate cyber defence, to get rid of all nuclear warheads, to have a smaller military, fewer military bases, less munitions and above all, become much more vulnerable than if they were to remain as part of the United Kingdom remains an inescapable reality of an independent Scotland. Then there are also the knock-on effects on neighbouring countries. What should happen to the rest of the United Kingdom’s defence? Salmond in his debates has argued that there will be a strong military for Scotland. But this depends on whether Scottish Military Personnel currently serving in the British Armed Forces choose to leave the British military and join its Scottish counter-part. I myself understand that this is a huge burden to ask of those Scots currently serving their country as well as the recognition of those who, as Scots, have already fallen for Great Britain since members of my own family will have to make this decision. Therefore, I know first-hand the implications and consequences of this task. I ask the reader: is this a fair question and decision to make? The SNP’s ‘White Paper’ states that the naval maritime forces will have “around 2,000 regular and at least 200 reserve personnel.” The land forces will have “around 3,500 regular and at least 1,200 reserve personnel”, and the Air Forces will have “around

                                                                                                               222 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Pages 96-97 223 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 104 224 Alex Salmond hits back at George Osborne over Scottish Independence – The Guardian, dated 17 February 2014 225 Scottish Independence: Barroso says joining the EU would be ‘difficult’ – BBC, dated 16 February 2014 226 Alex Salmond hits back at George Osborne over Scottish Independence – The Guardian, dated 17 February 2014

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2,000 regular personnel and around 300 reserve personnel.”227 However, this amounts to Scotland’s Physical Military might to being “one naval base (Faslane without Trident), one air base and one mobile armed brigade.”228 Due to a paper written by retired Lt. Colonel Stuart Crawford and Economist Richard Marsh, they both calculated that a Scottish Military, or Scottish Defence Force (SDF) would have roughly an “Army one-third the size of Denmark's”, with a “Navy of about 20-25 ships” and an “Air Force of about 60 aircraft”229, but without Tornado or Eurofighter Typhoon jets. Moreover, they also discovered that the Cyber Defence capabilities in Scotland would need to be accessed and supported through the United Kingdom, certainly for the first few years of Independence. In their Paper ‘A’ the Blue Bonnets: Defending an Independent Scotland’, Crawford and Marsh state that “An independent Scotland would need to access such resources in some form or other or face being left out in the cold”. Additionally, the Retired Serviceman and Economist go on to say that “in the early years of independence at least, Scotland would need to come to some arrangement with the UK to supply the appropriate level of access to GCHQ expertise” and that “without it the newly independent country would soon find itself at a distinct intelligence disadvantage”.230 Knowingly in this unpredictable world of ever evolving military and terror based threats, Scotland would only serve to expose itself to attack and consequently expose its neighbors, with whom economic alliance is so vital according to Salmond, to similar threats based upon military shortcomings. The SNP have also stated that Nuclear Warheads are out of the question. If an Independent Scotland becomes the reality then Trident is to move down south. Salmond has said, “Billions of pounds have been wasted to date on weapons that must never be used and, unless we act now, we risk wasting a further £100 billion, over its lifetime, on a new nuclear weapons system.”231 However, I would like to point out that without Britain’s nuclear weapons, are the British people not more vulnerable? Surely one of the main reasons to have nuclear weapons is to use them as deterrence; a threat that keeps the UK safe. If nuclear weapons were to leave Scotland when they became Independent then Scotland would lose its represented voice as a standing member of the Security Council, whilst part of the UK. Furthermore, is it not possible that a divided United Kingdom in terms of defence could become a major terrorist target? At the second Salmond versus Darling Debate, Salmond told the viewers as well as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer that all nuclear weapons are not wanted. But Darling made the point that “It would take up to 2028 to remove all nuclear weapons safely”.232 In my research I myself travelled to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium, which is the headquarters for NATO’s military powers and interviewed three currently serving senior international NATO military officers on Scottish Independence, the question being: ‘When considering the UK’s position in global political and military matters, how do you think the potential for a separate Scottish Nation will affect the geopolitical world picture?’ It needs to be stressed that the answers given from this question by the three NATO Officers is strictly their own opinion, and not the opinions of NATO, their countries, or any other form of body or organisation. The first answer, coming from a Brigadier 1 Star, stated, “I don’t think it will affect the military world picture much at all. Off course it will have a severe impact on Great Britain’s ability to retain the same military power as it is today… but I do believe that if Scotland is to become a separate nation it will have great impact on the many other nations as a whole, because then you could have the same type of separatism in many other countries (domino effect); talking about France and Spain who have to be examples… so this is my view, a very dangerous way forward because what we need now is                                                                                                                227 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 239-241 228 Q&A: Your Scottish Independence Questions – BBC, dated 25 June 2012 229 Q&A: Your Scottish Independence Questions – BBC, dated 25 June 2012 230 ‘A’ The Blue Bonnets’ Paper – By retired Lt. Colonel Stuart Crawford and Economist Richard Marsh, Pages 21-22 231 Scotland’s Future – The Scottish Government Website, Chapter 6 ‘International Relations and Defence’ 232 Second Salmond Versus Darling debate, dated 25 August 2014

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not separatism we need unity within Europe, within NATO.”233 The second Officer, a Naval Captain, replied, “my strictly personal view is that Scottish Independence would weaken British defence capability and would weaken British prestige in the eyes of the world.” When asked again about whether the referendum would affect Britain militarily the NATO Officer stated, “in general terms I believe Scottish independence would weaken the UK’s Armed Forces as a whole.”234 Finally the third officer, a Canadian Colonel, stated that “UK in international military... simple question, UK's military history and experience is a key component of western military power and greatly influences military doctrine. We share much politically, culturally, economic, socially and we share much militarily and because we cannot go at it alone in the future (militarily), the UK is key to any future military engagements. Again, no one nation, not even the US, can go in and succeed alone. Related to this is of course the question of the UK and Scotland’s independence. The UK is a strong partner now and should a divorce with Scotland occur, that will be a considerable distraction. It will draw away attention and resources from external issues and partnerships to internal issues through having to “manage the divorce”. It is possible to have a relatively friction free divorce, but even in those instances it consumes time, attention and other resources. In the end, the UK will become a far less present partner than it needs to be (particularly at this time – Ukraine, ISIS etc.).”235 It must be noted, that these views made by Serving International Officers in NATO suggest that actually in a time of global instability the United Kingdom and the world need unity; not separatism. Pro independence Conversely, pro independence supporters have hit back with arguably, equally valuable and substantial information. Salmond has declared that Scotland should have their own rights to decide on whether Scotland should declare war or invade a country. A primary example of an unpopular invasion with the SNP is the Iraq invasion in 2003. In his spring conference in 2013 Salmond said, “It is ten years since the Scottish Parliament first debated the Iraq war – when a catalogue of deception by a Labour Prime Minister – a Labour Prime Minister – led the UK into an illegal conflict that came at enormous human cost.”236 Clearly the SNP have shown that an independent military is wanted so that there can be a prevention of any unnecessary wars or conflicts and moreover a prevention of perceived unnecessary loss of life. The First Minister has also stated that by having independence, it “will allow Scotland to set defence priorities that reflect Scottish needs and develop the right capabilities to meet them”.237 The SNP above all feel that through having their own Scottish Defence Force, Scotland will not be tied to any other country’s military actions. They believe that Scotland will have the ability to make its own choice. Scotland will attempt to keep a steady budget of £2.5 Billion on Defence; they will remove all Nuclear Weapons from Scotland and will increase maritime abilities like patrols.238 Five years after independence, Scotland will set up a maritime patrol aircraft, which the United Kingdom at present does not have. After 10 years of Independence, Scotland will attempt to create a grand total of 15,000 active servicemen and women and 5,000 recruited servicemen and women 239 On the subject of nuclear weapons, Alex Salmond, the SNP, and its supporters have made it clear where they stand. There will be no nuclear warheads in Scotland. This means that the money used on behalf of making, maintaining and running the nuclear warhead programme will be able to be spent on other areas of an Independent Scotland

                                                                                                               233 Interview with International Brigadier 1 Star Officer serving in NATO 234 Interview with International Naval Captain Officer serving in NATO 235 Interview with International Colonel Serving in NATO 236 http://www.snp.org/blog/post/2013/mar/alex-salmond-speech-snp-spring-conference - Dated 23 March 2013 237 http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/First-Minister-sets-out-vision-on-defence-2a6.aspx - Dated 25 July 2014 238 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 237 239 Scotland’s Future: Your guide to an Independent Scotland (White Paper) – Page 243

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such as education or pensions. Salmond made it very clear that it would be sensible not to proceed or spend 100 Billion pounds over the next 40 years on Trident.240 Without the protection of one of the biggest Nuclear Forces in Europe, Scotland could become less of a target to any potentially harmful terrorist organisations like ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq or Syria), or independent terrorists. By looking at the information, I see that there could be huge potential for Scotland if all nuclear warheads and funding stopped inside Scottish territory. Through acting out these actions there is potential for the money spent on nuclear warheads like Trident to be put to better use to improve the Scottish economy. For example, increasing pensions, bettering living standards or increasing health service provision. Is it not better to use money on areas that are used frequently, rather than on one area of defence that will hopefully never be used?

In conclusion, it is clear that Scotland appears on paper to have the ability to become independent, in terms of defence and economy. However, practically I feel this is not the case. There are still extreme concerns regarding questions that have not been answered properly by the SNP. Alistair Darling once asked Alex Salmond what is his plan B for the currency option?241 Mr. Salmond merely answered by providing a variety of options, but never did he choose a fixed decision on which option should become his plan B. It is merely because he does not know. I personally think that to be elected to run a country you should know what currency your country will use. The fact that Salmond still is not 100% sure, weeks away from arguably the biggest decision in Scotland’s existence is not a good sign. Militarily, I have considered the options and honestly believe that a divisive future is a weakened resolve to protect our people and islands with which we share irreversible links. The blood spilled in past and ongoing conflicts runs together irrespective of which part of these great isles one resides. Our collective military might of past, present and future relies upon our combined and unique qualities that make the British military, however small, a force to be reckoned with. I will be one of the youngest voters ever in Britain’s voting history and I have been given the privilege on voting on my country’s future, but also the future of the United Kingdom. I do not want Scotland to become independent. I think that Scotland’s economy will be unbalanced and there will be insufficient money spent on defence and welfare, as well as education and health and other areas in the Scottish economy. I feel that allied countries and hostile nations will undermine the Scottish Defence Force, and that Scotland being taken advantage of is a grave possibility. By comparing the pros and cons of both economy and defence in this essay I feel that an overall Independence would not:

a) Be overall suitable for Scotland or the rest of the United Kingdom b) Bring Scotland what they desire i.e. complete Independence c) Provide for a Scottish nation that will be beneficial for our future

generations as it is currently as a constituent part of the United Kingdom

To conclude, I quote Nelson Mandela: “I dream of the realisation of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.”242 Scotland unlike South Africa has already shared 307 years of unity, where its leaders have combined in their efforts to solve the problems of its beloved nation. I believe that Scotland will not become a fully functioning independent country. To misquote Alex Salmond, “This is our time, our moment, we’re ‘better together’.”

                                                                                                               240 Second Salmond Versus Darling debate, dated 25 August 2014 241 First and Second Salmond Versus Darling debates, dated 5 and 25 August 2014 242 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/unity.html

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How far is literature influenced by the major historical and cultural events of its period?

By Eric Robinson, U6 Southwood

It is widely acknowledged that the inspiration for a large number of the world’s most celebrated works of literature have been major historical or cultural occurrences. In the words of Lyra Zenti, “History provides literature with abundant materials,” and whether they happened near the time of writing, or in an entirely different period, authors such as Dickens, Owen, Holm, and countless others have chosen to base their literature on particular historical events, writing either from their own point of view or from the perspective of a fictional set of characters. It can also be argued that history has a greater, more pervading influence over all sorts of literature, and not just those works that are based on or give reference to the period. Instead, historical themes and undercurrents can be found everywhere, even if only as the inspiration for an entirely new literary creation. As such, literature might be divided into four categories in terms of how far they have been affected, inspired, or influenced by a certain historical or cultural event. These four would be as follows: First would be those books/poems/plays that are written as a direct response to a certain period of history, and so incorporate real events that were happening around the time of writing as a key part of the plot. Next, those works that give strong reference to their historical/cultural event in the form of their depictions of the event, or the commentary they give on it through the actions and reactions of their characters. Then there is the literature that shows no outward sign of having been affected by any sort of history, but upon close analysis might be seen as having some sort of historical parallel or inspiration. Here the influence of any particular event or occurrence is far less transparent, often to the point where its existence is questionable. And finally, there are those works that do not portray or reference an event, but react to it – either by mocking it, or in the case of a cultural event, giving an alternative to the aesthetic that it is reacting against. The first, second and last categories are widely acknowledged as being influenced by history and culture – here it is the extent to which they have been affected that is the question. Meanwhile, in the third it is far more difficult to detect a historical or cultural influence, as they are far more ambiguous. I personally would argue that all literature (bar a tiny minority of fantasy novels) has at the very least had some sort of inspiration from a major historical or cultural event upon a key part of its makeup.

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Direct response To begin with then, those works that have been directly influenced by a particular event. This is often to the extent where they have been written almost wholly about it, or as Mark Wollacott puts it, “they are intertwined with one another. … the only difference… is that (the recorded history) posits itself as fact, whilst (the literature) is taken to be an artistic form.” Often these works come about through the presence of a seismic, unignorable cultural and historical event, such as war or revolution. With this in mind it comes as little surprise that the literature of the First World War can accurately portray the scale of the impact of such a vast event on the writings of the period, and in particular the literature of war poets such as Owen, Grenfell, Sassoon and others. Their work describing life in the trenches, medical institutions, or life back home all came about through a desire to convey the different effects of the fighting on them and on their fellow soldiers. However the opinions of these writers were not always in concert with each other. The more pugnacious Grenfell chose to celebrate war, declaring in his poem ‘Into Battle’ (1915) how

“Through joy and blindness he shall know, Not caring much to know, that still Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so That it be not the Destined Will”

Here he gives the classical opinion of war, as a form of daring sport where “through joy and blindness” men give their lives up to “the Destined Will” so as to fully experience the rush and thrill of battle. Despite all the grandeur and posturing however, it is the word “blindness” that seems to resonate the most, perhaps as an unintentional nod to the fact that almost everyone who fought in the war was utterly unprepared for the sheer brutality of it. By contrast, Owen offers an entirely different perspective. His poem “Strange Meeting” (1918), describes a soldier’s descent into hell where he meets an “enemy” he killed the day before. The final stanza,

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now…”

offers a chilling account of the cold-blooded horror that the fighting caused. In contrast to Grenfell’s full rhyme and strong iambic rhythm, Owen uses pararhyme to enhance the sense of extreme discord and discomfort, whilst his language is considerably more negative. Grenfell talks about “joy and blindness”, whilst Owen focuses on the “loath and cold”, as well as using the uncomfortable verbs “jabbed and killed”. Here then, we can see how far literature can be influenced by a historical event in terms of the differences and opposition they can cause. It must also be considered that these two poems are just a tiny glance of the huge literary outpour that came about as a result of the First World War. 53 British poets had their works on the fighting published, whilst countless others will have had their poetry either unpublished, or lost in the trenches.

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Because of this it is evident that a historical event can completely alter the literary landscape of its time, not just by giving writers “abundant materials” to write from, but by creating a pressing need for people to express to the world the affect that such an event is having. Such was the case with the First World War, and so it was with The French Revolution, The Renaissance, The Second World War, and all other major historical and cultural events that led to a direct literary response. Strong reference Next up are those works that give strong reference to the time they were written in. It is worth noting that these are different to those pieces written specifically about the period, as they will have a storyline that does not require the historical event to be present. A case in point would be how, In Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ (1859), the French Revolution is an integral part of the plot – without it the book could not have been written. Therefore like the War Poetry described above, it would be classed as a direct response to events in the period of writing. ‘David Copperfield’ (1849) however, only requires its historical/cultural event (Early Victorian Britain) as the setting. Ostensibly then, the plot could be lifted, placed in another time period, and still be viable. This aside, works like ‘David Copperfield’ have still undoubtedly had a strong historical influence. Dickens was recognised as a liberal writer, and as such he presses on many of the injustices in Victorian society within what is a heavily autobiographical novel. An example of this would be his depiction of the class divide that defined everyday life throughout the 19th Century; and “through his vivid descriptions, symbolic characters, and dialogue spoken, Dickens shows the stratification of people from his time”243. One of these characters is the wealthy, well brought up, and ever so slightly dubious James Steerforth, a man whose attitude towards the poor is one of great indifference, bordering on contempt. “If he’s not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one… it’s all the same…” was his explanation after having the kindly but looked-down-upon teacher Mr. Mell fired on the grounds that his mother lived in a poor house. And whilst it may be shocking for us, the teenaged Steerforth’s condemnation of his teacher for having a “near-relation” living off other people’s charity was in fact fairly normal in a society that looked down on the poor as being morally corrupt. Indeed, the commission of the hated Workhouses in 1832, or ‘Bastilles’ as they were known, seems to sum up the hard-line approach to the poor that was accepted as standard at the time of writing. In many ways then, Steerforth is used as the stereotype for the snobbish and uncaring upper class gent, both through his treatment of Mr. Mell, his unnecessarily patronising manner towards the Peggoty family, and his ‘stealing’ of Little Em’ly. As such, it is little surprise that right from Steerforth’s first introduction to the novel, Dickens fosters mistrust for him in the reader. First this is through the portrayal of his enjoyment in the young David’s idolisation, then the incident with Mr. Mell, and later via Agnes’ warning David away from him. Then of course there is the incident with Little Em’ly, which confirms our fears that he is not the dashing hero he appears to be at first sight. Agnes’ warning is also poignant due to her being David’s “dearest confidant”, as well as her role as the epitome of goodness and the moral compass of the story. As such her description of Steerforth as David’s “bad angel” could well be Dickens giving his opinion on the nature of Britain’s class divide as a whole. To him it was something rotten and

                                                                                                               243 http://www.directessays.com/viewpaper/1621.html (couldn’t find a name)

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unjust, and in the words of Joel J. Brattin, “He was eager to reveal the often shameful ways in which we behave, and to make careful judgements about how we might act with greater decency.” It is evident then, that a pressing social issue had an enormous impact on Dickens and his work. Steerforth might easily have just been portrayed as a plain old ‘bad guy’ character, but instead the descriptions of him in relation to such a big societal concern as the class divide, show how the novel has been influenced and in many ways enhanced by the cultural landscape of the time. The characters are more credible due to their realism, the setting is more viable as it has been drawn from experience, and the book carries with it a strong moral agenda in regard to the social injustices that are referenced throughout. And so whilst Dickens could have chosen to describe the life of David Copperfield in an entirely separate context, the influence of the culture of the Victorian era meant he would never have even considered setting it in anything other than his own time. Implication In the two sections above, the influence of the events of the time is evident. The works of literature that fall under these two categories show no obscurity in the historical or cultural events they are referencing, and it would therefore be almost impossible to argue against their presence. Again, as has been shown, it is the extent of the influence of these events on the compilation, subject matter, and characters within these pieces that is up for debate. A great deal of literature however is far less obvious in terms of it having any discernible inspiration from affairs of the time. Here then, it is up to the reader to draw parallels, and to interpret any contextual meaning that the author may have either consciously or subconsciously inserted into the piece. Take for instance, Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897). Outwardly it is a classic Gothic novel of the spooky and supernatural, and yet like many of the great works of its genre the social concerns at the time of writing have left a discernible impact. According to Leslie S. Klinger, “Dracula is a book of its time” and it does indeed give hints as to the nature of the period, with allusions to the changing role of women, the breakdown of traditional values, immigration fears, and concerns over new technology. The role of women is of particular interest, as unlike Dickens’ references to class divide in ‘David Copperfield’, Stoker does not make any black and white distinctions. In ‘David Copperfield’, it is evident that Steerforth holds the values of a snobbish member of the aristocracy and is therefore bad. It is also evident that David is far more caring and liberal towards the poorer members of society, and is therefore good. Stoker meanwhile makes no such assertions in ‘Dracula’ over whom out of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker might be the Victorian ideal of the perfect woman. Both are described as ‘pure’ and ‘innocent’ and both are devoted to their fiancées and held in great affection and esteem by their friends. Indeed the only difference between the two is that Mina is the more maternal, whilst Lucy is the more beautiful, and it is this distinction that allows Stoker to explore what Victorian society viewed as the female paragon. We see how the (only slightly) sexualised character of Lucy is unable to resist the Count, and as a result her “sweetness was turned to heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness.” Meanwhile Mina shows absolutely no sexual urges at all and ends up helping defeat the count, being described along the way as “So true, so sweet, so noble.” This image of the more sexual woman being corrupted to the extent where “cruelty” and “wantonness” replace “sweetness” and “purity”, whilst the woman with no sexuality becomes one of the heroes of the tale, is certainly in tandem with the perceptions of women by men

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throughout the Victorian era. “The best mothers, wives, and managers of households know nothing about sexual indulgence. Love of home, children, and domestic duties, are the only passions they feel. As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself.” Such are the words of William Acton in his essay “The Function and Disorders of The Reproductive Organs in Childhood, Youth, Adult Age, and Advanced Life, Considered in their Physiological, Social and Moral Relations” (1857), and his description of the feminine ideal might easily have been specifically about Mina Harker. Through this we can see the difference that such a small distinction between the characters of Mina and Lucy can make. Stoker’s mild sexualisation of Lucy, whilst seemingly insignificant at first glance, actually reveals a whole wealth of concerns over the role of women in what was a period of great change and uncertainty. And whilst she is by no means portrayed as “this loud and rampant modernisation, with her false hair and painted skin” 244 , the presence of a sexual side to her character is arguably Lucy’s downfall, and therefore by extension, the downfall of all women who do not suppress their sexuality in the manner of Mina Harker. To sum up then, Stoker does not explicitly state any concerns over the increasing sexualisation of women in “Dracula”, or even reference it in the manner of Dickens in ‘David Copperfield’. Instead he cleverly draws parallels between Lucy’s corruption by Count Dracula, and the corruption that many Victorian men feared would take place if women became more aware of their sexuality. As such, the influence of the changing culture in Britain on the novel is to create this implied social commentary to voice the author’s concerns, whilst leaving the main body of the text unaffected. Of course there are those who might say that Lucy was just unlucky, and that her being the Count’s main victim was purely because Stoker needed someone to be attacked so as to continue the story. Indeed there would be a lot of people who are of the opinion that “Whenever we read we overanalyse books by over-reaching, searching for something that doesn’t exist. Trying to give every little detail a meaning like the author intended it,”245 These people might point out how there is a necessity for some differences in character, and that for us to say Stoker engineered things so as to hint at his thoughts on a social issue that had little to do with the storyline is fanciful at the very least. This point of view may hold some validity as after all nobody can say for sure what the author meant by characterising Mina and Lucy as he did. However the way that the Victorian moral code was so strong in those times, coupled with Stoker’s own experiences of more licentious women whilst working at his friend Henry Irving’s theatre, means that there is a context to the piece that is difficult to ignore. Add to this the contrast between Mina at one end of the scale, and Dracula’s sexy but deadly daughters at the other, and it becomes difficult to ignore the influence of traditional Victorian attitudes on the makeup of the piece. Reaction

                                                                                                               244 Eliza Lynn Linton, ‘The Girl of The Period’ (1868) 245 Melissa Rae, ‘Over-analyzing Literature’ (2012)

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The three categories that have been spoken about so far all contain literature that has been written about, or references, a historical or cultural event that took place during the period. And whilst the portrayal of these events has often been negative, such as with Dickens and Owen, in each case the representation has been fairly true, and only goes so far as to highlight the negatives of their characters’ experience. Literature written as a reaction however might attempt to not only highlight, but mock and or discredit an event. It might also however provide an alternative to the cultural change it is reacting against. To start with though, literature that reacts against events through ridiculing and or demeaning it. So whereas a book such as “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962) might give a chilling account of a historical event, (in this case Stalinist oppression), George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (1945) is designed instead to break down and disparage the Soviet regime. The basic plot of the animal’s overthrow of the farmer and then subsequent coup and oppression by the two most power hungry pigs, is designed to work as a denigrating comparison to the idealistic failures of the Russian Revolution, with the major characters each taking up the roles of key Soviet political figures. Joseph Stalin in particular is markedly ridiculed through the character of Napoleon, fittingly named after another supposed liberator who turned about to be an even worse oppressor. Orwell’s derision for Stalin is relayed in the phrase “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which”, a description that shows the extent to which the farm/Union has regressed back to the time of the Tsars/humans under Stalin/Napoleon’s oppressive guidance. The pitiable workhorse Boxer meanwhile represents the working classes who were the real driving force behind the revolution. He slaves away his life in dedication to his masters for little or no reward, and is eventually sold to a glue factory to pay for Napoleon’s whisky; a striking metaphor then for the extreme neglect showed to the citizens of the USSR by its leaders. Hence we can see here how the cultural event that was the birth of Stalinism has influenced the literature of a great socialist writer such as Orwell. His outrage at the exploitation of the communist ideal by Stalin and his cronies led to him writing some of the most famous works of the 20th Century, and all as a reaction to the debasement of what he felt could have been a major force for good in the world. Next, on to the reactionary literature that provides an alternative, as put in the introduction, to the aesthetic it is reacting against. An illustration of this would be the Romantic Movement, which “was born out of a sense of disillusionment with The Enlightenment”246 and as such promoted values that were in complete opposition to what had come before it. For example, the key foundations of The Enlightenment were a belief in natural law and order, a belief in the power of human reason over emotions and or divine revelation, and the promotion of science and learning to better society. The Romantics were against this cold rationalisation of life, and as such Romantic literature is flooded with “the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.”247 Much of this can be seen in Percy Shelley’s “Adonais”, where he proclaims

“Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead! Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!

                                                                                                               246 Jeff Carreira, “From The Enlightenment to the Romantic Revolution” (2010) 247 Encyclopedia Britannica, “Romanticism”

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Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep”

Here the dramatic use of repetition, punctuation and adjectives such as “burning bed” and “melancholy mother” are all designed to maximise the outpouring of emotion that the speaker feels. Needless to say, these cries of misery are far out of keeping with the ideas of The Enlightenment, especially when the speaker encourages his mother to express her grief by commanding her to “wake and weep!” for Adonais. The heavy caesura also gives the poem a rambling tone, giving us the sense that the speaker’s misery has almost turned him demented. Again, this lack of rationality is in stark contrast to the emphasis The Enlightenment placed on being of a cool and reasonable nature. The Romantic Movement therefore provides a stellar example of literature opposing a cultural event by giving alternative values. Indeed the Romantics proved so successful that their works are now far more recognisable than those that came from The Enlightenment era, showing just how far a historical/cultural event can influence the literature of the time. Conclusion In conclusion then, we can see how literature can be influenced by the major historical and cultural events of the period in a variety of different ways. Some literature such as the poetry of Owen and Grenfell is written directly about an event. Here the historical influence is abundantly clear in its presence and can inspire a wide variety of responses, ranging from things such as Grenfell’s delight to Owen’s dejection. A lot of literature strongly references its period, and will use parallel events or characters to give a taste of what life was actually like at the time. For instance ‘David Copperfield’ providing an enormous insight into Victorian life through characters such as Steerforth, who is a symbol of the deep class divide that Dickens so lamented. Still more works show no outward sign of having a historical or cultural bias, yet still show traces of having been influenced by events. This was evident in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’; a novel about an evil vampire that also explores the changing role of women in the late 19th Century through the subtle characterisations of the two main female protagonists. Then there is the reactionary literature that either attempts to scorn or mock, as in ‘Animal Farm’, or instead defies a changing culture by employing completely polar techniques and values. Because of all this, it can be argued that there is very little literature that has not been influenced by the history and culture of its time, the exception being some children’s books, extreme fantasy novels, and literature set in a different period of history than it is written in (even here it is possible in the majority of pieces to find parallels, i.e. Shakespeare writing about foreign or past courts so as not to offend his own monarch, but the word limit decrees otherwise!). Instead, Mark Wollacott is entirely correct when he describes the two fields as being “intertwined,” and it is certainly true that without the inspiration of real life events, the majority of literature would be severely altered, weakened, and in many cases, non-existent.

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Is cinema a dead medium?

By Louis Taylor-Baggs, U6 Southwood “The cinema is an invention without any future” - so said the Lumière brothers, the inventors of the early motion picture camera. But cinema went on to flourish over the course of the last century. This was the case despite the industry facing numerous challenges that each led to prophecies of doom. Today, there are multiple challenges facing the cinema industry and the prospects for the industry are less clear. Developments in home entertainment technology, ease of access to film content using the Internet, a broader television offering, Internet piracy, multiple alternative leisure opportunities and a change in the nature of the film product have all combined to present the cinema industry with its biggest challenge to date. There are also many opportunities. Digital cinema allows flexibility, 3D technology has allowed for a different viewing experience, alternative content such as live opera and sport allow cinemas to diversify. Cinema is also developing an improved customer experience, both in terms of online ticket access and the cinema environment. We are at a critical time for cinema. The industry response to these challenges and opportunities will dictate whether cinema survives and prospers or withers and dies. The earliest films of the 1890s were shown by travelling exhibitors, but the phenomenon soon took hold and a small movie industry began to grow by the turn of the century. The first successful permanent “movie theatre” was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, called “The Nickelodeon”. At this time, films were basic, without colour or sound. Often, the films shown in the cinemas of America, Britain and France would be accompanied by music performed by a pianist. It took until 1923 for sound to be introduced to films and with this, the film industry grew, especially in Europe. The First World War saw the film industry in Italy and France suffer a major setback. It was at this point that the industry in Hollywood established a foothold and dominance that it has never lost. Colour completely changed cinema when it was introduced into American cinema at the end of WW2. Cinema was now a worldwide obsession. It was in the 1970s that the future of cinema came under serious question. The advent of the video recorder in the 1970s was predicted to be the ultimate death nail for cinema. If consumers could record movies at home or rent movies from their local video store, why would they keep going to the cinema? The American film studios saw a clear threat and responded with hard fought litigation against video manufacturers claiming that the copiers allowed consumers to infringe copyright and so should be banned. This litigation culminated in the infamous Sony Corp -v- Universal Studios litigation. The studios discovered that the courts wanted new technologies to flourish without any constraint from the established film industry. The industry then spent years lobbying for protection but ultimately learned to live alongside video. Both businesses grew. This growth was further enhanced by the arrival of the multiplex cinema. This was the beginning of a big change, allowing the public to go to one building with multiple screens and choose from different films on offer at the same time. Cinemas increasingly offered free parking as well as food and drink and comfy seating. So popular was this further development that the first multiplex in the UK (in Milton Keynes) sold 2 million tickets in its first 2 years.248 These multiplexes have spawned huge companies in the UK such as Odeon, Vue and Cineworld. There are also many independent cinemas showing specialist or

                                                                                                               248 http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/nov/11/multiplex-cinemas-the-point-milton-keynes

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“independent” films that won’t be shown in the multiplex. Both types of cinema have a common aim, to encourage the public to go the cinema to spend leisure time and money. Despite what many people think, ticket revenue is primarily paid over to the Studios that make the films, with a relatively small percentage retained by the exhibitor. For this reason, cinemas cover the costs of operation by relying on income from sources such as advertising, food, drink and merchandise. This emphasis on sales of food and drink and not just sale of tickets is how the modern cinema functions. Although cinema has been a success story, there has been a huge change in cinema attendance. In America, overall audiences have steadily declined. In 1930, 80 million American people went to the cinema each week (65% of America’s population). In 2000, 27.3 million people visited the cinema each week (9.7% of America’s population)249. This decline was seen in England as well. The 1940s were considered the ‘Golden Age’ of cinema and from that point cinema attendance fell dramatically. In 1960, cinema attendance in Britain had fallen from 600 million cinema tickets sold a year to 501 million. By 1984, only 60 million tickets to the cinema were sold in Britain250. Between 2002 and 2012 the British cinema industry began to flatline, as shown in figure 1.1 below. At present, this puts British cinema in a better position than cinema in America (figure 1.2). As the Box Office Numbers table shows below, American cinema had its peak in 2002 with sales of 1.57 billion tickets. By 2010, annual ticket sales had fallen to 1.33 billion. The change in popularity could be due to the present day challenges facing the cinema. Many commentators think that the technology changes inspired by the Internet really are the ultimate challenge to cinema.

Figure 1.1: British Film Institute (“BFI”) Statistical Yearbook 2013 Figure 1.2: National Association of Theatre Owners

                                                                                                               249 http://org.elon.edu/ipe/pautz2.pdf 250 House of Commons Research Paper – a century of change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900

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One of these key challenges is the improvement in home entertainment technology. The invention of HD TVs, 4K TVs, Flat screen TVs, improved audio systems and smart TVs have all contributed to making the home entertainment experience rewarding for many consumers. This “in-home” technology is a problem for cinemas because the novelty of a huge screen and amazing audio can now be experienced by an individual in his own home. Smart TVs are having such a huge effect on the cinema market because they enable consumer access to the Internet and therefore services such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer and many more services that are similar to these. In 2012, 67 million smart TVs were sold worldwide251. This new technology coupled with the amazing picture quality now offered on TVs has challenged cinema. Furthermore, the average TV size is now 36.8 inches, which is a comparatively large screen enabling people to enjoy watching films in their home252. Another improvement in TVs, that has led to the cinema losing one of its USPs (Unique Selling Points) is the 3D TV. When a new 3D film is released, people who own a 3D TV are more likely to wait for it to come out on DVD rather than take an expensive trip to the cinema. Recognising this challenge, Crispin Lilly, Vice President of Business Affairs, Cineworld Cinemas said “4D is the future to differentiate between home entertainment and the cinema”253 . Additionally, audio quality is continuing to rise with the invention of the sound bar (providing surround sound quality audio with your television). This again impacts cinema because you are able to get impressive sound within your own home so there is less need to make the trip to the cinema. Services such as Netflix and Lovefilm offer thousands of films available to stream wherever and whenever the consumer wants for a small fee of £6 a month for Netflix. This in itself is a huge problem for cinema because people are able to watch as many films as they want in the comfort of their own homes every month for far less than paying for a cinema trip, which could reach prices of £40 if you take a family. This problem has arisen and developed because of the increased speed and reliability of broadband and Wi-Fi. Because people can have very powerful Wi-Fi they can stream films in high quality and without delay. Furthermore, the legal streaming companies are fighting for shorter theatrical windows. This means a shorter time period between the release of a film in the cinema and a release of a film on DVD or on Netflix and Lovefilm. For many years, the film studios have held on to theatrical windows to try to drive revenue through ticket sales before then driving revenue through DVD sales. However, pressure from the home entertainment providers (and the impact of piracy that is considered further below) means that these companies are getting the latest movies much sooner after release in the cinema. This is a problem for the cinema because a shorter “window” between cinema release and availability on DVD or online means people can wait for a film to come out on whichever legal streaming service they have rather than making the trip to the cinema and spending a substantial amount more. Netflix has benefited from these effects. Its total customer base stood at 29.4 million in 2012 and it has continued to grow since. If these 29.4 million people went to the cinema and each bought one ticket, with the average cinema ticket price in 2013 being £6.53, cinemas would make an extra £191,982,000. Another problem that the legal streaming services are causing for cinema is their funding of their own projects. This is a problem for the cinema because it takes control away from the studios (who have an incentive to support the cinema) and gives that control to a company like Netflix. These online companies have information on what their customers like to watch and they can tailor their choice of content to be most appealing to their customer base. This has already been displayed with the incredibly successful series that Netflix produced called ‘House of Cards’ and we can expect many more to come.

                                                                                                               251 http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelwolf/2013/02/25/3-reasons-87-million-smart-tvs-will-be-sold-in-2013/ 252 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218612/Shopping-new-TV-Screen-sizes-inching-warned-bigger-isn-t-better.html 253 http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/about-the-industry/

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This leads into another problem faced by the cinema, the problem of the audience of today loving to ‘box set binge’. This has become so successful because people can watch manageable 50 minute long episodes with the ability to follow a gripping and in-depth storyline for many hours. This causes a problem for cinema because people are using their leisure time to catch up on the latest episodes of their favourite series rather than take a trip to the cinema. Cinema in the future may not make enough revenue from selling tickets and food because of legal streaming services that offer up to date series and quality films for only a cheap monthly subscription, and so could well not have enough revenue or value for film studios to keep pumping money and films into. The film product has dramatically changed over the last century due to changes in demand and changes in the market that it is targeted towards. Cinema has moved from turning over a large number of films each year to focusing on a more limited number of “blockbusters”. The top 5 films of 2013 were ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Frozen’, ‘Despicable Me 2’, ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ and ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’254. Put together these films grossed over $3.5 billion. This statistic suggests that the cinema must be doing great with these amazing films making so much money through ticket sales at the cinema. But these are 5 out of the 370 significant films made in 2013. Further, what all these films have in common is that they are big budget blockbusters. These types of film appeal to a global market including, most importantly, China. The need to please a global market leads to a focus on action films and big blockbusters that have a mass appeal and so a lower risk. Over time, this type of content can become very standard and repetitive. This may deter people from watching films in the future. For cinema to survive, the film industry may need to turn its focus back to funding a broader range or film projects. Cinemas themselves will have to look at alternative sources of revenue such as live broadcasting of events and theatre performances and a greater focus on providing an enjoyable experience overall rather than just a film. The main devastating problem that is impacting on cinema is also a symptom of the growth of the Internet - Piracy. The definition of Piracy is the unauthorised use or reproduction of another’s work. This involves sites such as PirateBay setting up and offering users the ability to download any movie illegally whether it has been released on DVD or is still showing in the cinema. The Pirate Bay is the most visited torrent directory on the Internet with millions of people visiting the site a day. The most illegally downloaded film of all time is James Cameron’s 3D blockbuster Avatar, which since its release in 2009 had been downloaded 21 million times by 2011. James Cameron once said that “3D filmmaking was the entertainment industry’s best hope for fighting piracy” however this is clearly not the case. Piracy is such a problem for cinema because it allows people to get the latest release, which would otherwise only be available in the cinema, for no charge. Internet users can download the movie onto their laptops to keep and access whenever and wherever they would like. Increasingly, Internet users can also access unlicensed streaming websites that copy the Netflix concept but make no charge. A site like “Watch Free Movies” will enable access to a vast library of films that can be streamed by any user who has an Internet connection. Many people question why they might need to go to the cinema and pay money to watch a film when the film is readily available to download from one of over 10,000 sites providing access to illegal content on the Internet. This problem is particularly hard to prevent for the cinemas and is really in the hands of the film studios. This means that the cinemas are relying on the action of the film studios to stop piracy and get more people coming back to the cinema. To tackle the problem, the film studios are

                                                                                                               254 http://filmonic.com/top-10-successful-movies-2013

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increasingly seeking the help of ISPs by seeking court orders requiring ISPs to block access to pirate sites. The first court order of order of this type was secured in 2011 when BT was ordered to block access to a film and TV site called Newzbin. Since, then 41 sites have so far been blocked in the UK, including the Pirate Bay. However, really a far more vigorous and far reaching campaign would seem to be required if the full range of pirate sites is going to be blocked. A lawyer advising the film industry has commented; “Some piracy sites are more popular than the websites for Odeon or Cineworld. This represents a massive challenge for the film industry and requires considerable investment in litigation and enforcement all of which reduces investment into new films”. This displays how if piracy is not stopped or film studio business models are not changed, not only will the cinemas suffer but the film industry as a whole will suffer. So there are some major challenges for the cinema industry globally. Some of these challenges are very significant. Overall, the Internet and associated advances in technology have allowed other avenues for access to movies. The cinema industry must adapt and recognise that there also opportunities for cinemas. The first of these comes in the ability to diversify their content and remain a leading entertainment exhibitor. The first way is by showing alternative forms of content such as live opera and sport matches. This ability to diversify is crucial because it means that cinemas can attract new audiences and new people to the cinema and so can continue to gain revenue. Also, this means that cinemas do not have to rely on the film studios for content - the film industry could begin to struggle and cinemas would still be distributing content. This recognition of the chance to make available alternative types of content has already been put into practice. Cineworld, for example, provides customers with the opportunity to book tickets to view Billy Elliot live at their cinemas. This form of adaptation was launched in 2009 where a screening of ‘Phedre’ was played in 250 cinemas and it caught a global audience of 50,000 people255. This shows the potential this method has for the future to keep cinema firmly in society. Furthermore, the Internet now enables consumers to purchase tickets online and so make the cinema experience far more straightforward. Online ticket access also means that cinema operators do not need to have such large areas in their cinema buildings devoted to selling tickets. Removing these areas will create vast amounts of space which can be used to benefit the cinemas in many ways. At the moment in cinemas, the companies make revenue from the film product and retail (refreshments) which is aided by the customer service. As Crispin Lilly, Vice President of Business Affairs, Cineworld Cinemas says “the main reason why people will want to go to the cinema in the future is the overall customer experience: it’s not a just commodity we are selling – it is the experience itself”. And so, to make the cinema more of a location and an experience, forward thinking cinema operators are planning to use this available extra space for cafes, restaurants and bars. This is in an attempt to persuade people to choose to spend an evening at the cinema as part of a sociable and enjoyable night out. This is an opportunity which if executed well and with the diversification of the content available could change cinema but could also increase the chances of its survival into the future.

                                                                                                               255 http://artsdigitalrnd.org.uk/features/the-ongoing-benefit-of-rd-for-nt-live/

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Additionally, if more people come to the cinema as a location it opens up incredible opportunities for advertisement as a source of revenue for the cinema. This is because people who want to watch a certain type of film are often people who have similar interests. Advertisers relish the chance to promote their products to an audience that is likely to be engaged with the product and interested in learning more. This is another source of income that is going to allow cinemas to evolve and stay up to date with society. Improvements in technology such as 3D and 4D and further advances in the future may also allow cinemas to provide a very different entertainment experience. A film such as Avatar pushed the boundaries of 3D film but this is likely to be just the beginning. The future may hold even better graphic delivery of film and perhaps, in time, we will see film becoming even more interactive, with audience members able to participate in the film. In a recent presentation on the future of cinema, the former President of Sony Pictures, Technology, noted that technology could soon enable film makers to do anything and work in a world where technology provides no limits to creative freedom. Cookson said: “Our job on the technology side is to make the technology disappear, to make applications and interfaces that are so powerful and intuitive that storytellers can focus only on telling their stories.256” The opportunities presented by new technology have led the Director of Avatar, James Cameron, to state: “I think there will be movie theatres in 1,000 years. People want the group experience, the sense of going out and participating in a film together. People have been predicting the demise of movie theatres since I started in the business”. 257 In conclusion, cinema has changed remarkably over the last one hundred years. This change has been due to changing tastes in society and ever-changing and improving technology. This change has recently developed at an extraordinary pace with the advent of the Internet. This development in Internet technology and the issues around Internet piracy have threatened the heart of cinema. However, despite the challenge, cinema has remained competitive as it provides a place to socialize and enjoy great entertainment. Just as it was said that the video or DVD would kill the cinema, so it is now said that the Internet will deliver the ultimate body blow. However, I believe that cinema is not a dead medium and that it will remain strong into the future. Yes, cinema must change and provide an even more rewarding consumer experience, but the successful cinema companies and film studios will surely adapt and continue to deliver enriching experiences to consumers for years to come.        

                                                                                                               256 http://variety.com/2014/film/news/predicting-the-future-of-cinema-no-limits-and-the-web-wins-1201153183/ 257 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/40th-anniversary/james-cameron-on-the-future-of-cinema-983659/#9ML9rbTdmWOmxFXT.99  

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Who owed more to Peel: Gladstone or Disraeli? The apprentice or the nemesis? National competition entry

By Oliver Thorley, U6 Boyne House Sir Robert Peel was without a doubt one of the most gifted politicians to grace Britain in the 19th century. He had a profound influence on the nation through both his policies and his legacy. Further to this, he undertook a paramount role in the sculpting of two other great political leaders of the century; Gladstone and Disraeli. The political rivalry shared between Gladstone and Disraeli was almost certainly one of the most noteworthy personal duals in British political history. The two men could be said to be polar opposites of one another. Gladstone was an academically brilliant, highly religious statesman, who like Peel, set about a political doctrine based upon free trade, low taxation and small government. His admirers were widespread and he appealed greatly to the working and lower-middle classes. In contrast Disraeli was a free-spirited, rather eccentric protectionist Conservative who took a paternal and pragmatic approach to governance. He coined the political philosophy of Tory democracy in which he observes that society exists and develops organically; with the role of the upper classes being to tend to those below them. Peel, just as these two men were very different, influenced them both in different ways. Gladstone was Peel’s apprentice and natural protégé and as such Peel held direct ascendancy over Gladstone. Disraeli however was familiar with Peel for rather unconventional reasons. During Peel’s Corn Law repeal of 1846, Disraeli and Lord Bentinck campaigned against Peel's actions in what was Disraeli’s first major appearance at the forefront of British politics. In many ways, Peel's downfall in 1846 was the principle initiator behind Disraeli’s rise in the Conservative party in later years. Thus to answer who owed more to Peel, it is crucial to compare the areas in which Peel influenced the two leaders. Firstly, we can look at how the three set about their role as politicians and as Prime Minister. This includes how they acted on a social basis with their party members. Secondly, we can look at the political ideologies of the men and the extent to which they pushed for reform. Finally, it is worth looking at the different forms of political ascendancy witnessed. Although Gladstone would be the obvious candidate for owing more of his career to Peel, we actually see that Disraeli was more in debt to Peel than Gladstone, for reasons that are often quite inconspicuous. On a political basis then, it can be said that Gladstone owed much to Peel. Indeed in 1841, Peel gave Gladstone his first taste of office when he gave him the position of vice- president of the board of trade whilst Gladstone was still bellow the age of 40 - it was rare for members of parliament to reach such a position at such a young age. Furthermore, this office was at the time one of the most significant as it dealt with the trade and commerce issues of the country. For Britain, the ‘workshop of the world’ this was an immense office and Peel showed his regard for Gladstone by putting him in this position. From 1841-43 Gladstone remained vice-President before becoming President in 1843, a position which he held until 1845. During these four years Gladstone learnt virtually everything there was to know on the subject of fiscal, monetary and trade policy. Gladstone himself revealed the significance which Peel had on his economic outlook by declaring: ‘The best man of Business I ever knew.’258

                                                                                                               258 David Bebbington, The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics

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As well as being heavily influenced by Peel in terms of his economic outlook, Gladstone also appeared to have adopted many of the prime ministerial characteristics expressed by Peel. Indeed many of Gladstone's actions whilst as Prime Minister were starkly similar to that of Peel. What should first be said about the two is that they were both towering political figures. They both believed in high-minded administration whereby government and the empire were ruled by elite politicians on behalf of the landed aristocracy. They both were able, serious-minded liberal Anglicans and as such were perfect people politicians and statesmen. They also did however share the same flaws. Both were poor party leaders and man managers. As well as these blanket similarities, more precise resemblances can be made. The first of these is that both individuals shared the distinction of being heavily involved in the founding of a party. For Peel it was the Conservative party in 1834, which was founded following the split of the Tory party due to Catholic Emancipation. This led to the Ultra Tories under the leadership of Wellington refusing to continue to work alongside the Liberal-Tories. For Gladstone, it was the Liberal party in 1859 which saw Radicals such as Lord John Russell, Peelites such as Lord Aberdeen and Whigs such as Lord Palmerston unite to form a new party on the back of Italian Unification (rather strangely). Furthermore, Gladstone, in the same way as his predecessor Peel, split his party over the question of Ireland in 1886. Gladstone proposed the Home Rule Bill which sought to devolve power to Ireland. This resulted in a calamitous split in his party, with a breakaway group led by Lord Hartington forming the Liberal Unionist party. The bill was eventually thrown out on the second reading - ending Gladstone's third government after only a few months. In doing this, Gladstone appears to almost replicate the situation in which Peel found himself with regard to the Maynooth Grant of 1845 and the Corn Law Repeal of 1846. This is a characteristic which seems to have been passed on from Peel to Gladstone. Both found the political situation of Ireland troublesome and both could do no better than dividing their parties over the issue. This is in stark contrast to Disraeli who during his foremost prime ministerial years from 1874-80, seemed keen to ignore Ireland completely. Disraeli unlike Gladstone learnt from the mistakes of Peel and saw that the Irish problem was bound to lead to party difficulties. As such, Disraeli came to government with no strong Irish Policy in mind and he had no intention of dealing with Ireland. Politically then, Disraeli learnt from Peel in a very different way to Gladstone. It is true that initially from the 1830s to around 1843, Disraeli did admire Peel however in general, he shared a predominantly discordant political relationship with the man. Nevertheless he certainly owed Peel the establishment of his political career. In 1846 alongside Lord Bentinck, Disraeli led an attack on Peel from within the Conservative party over the Corn Law repeal. Jenkins called Disraeli’s actions ‘the destruction of Peel’259 such was the enthusiasm that Disraeli brought in taking down Peel who he saw as being a dictator of the government and party. In fact Disraeli, during the debates, delivered no less than nine speeches in which the underlying message was that party mattered and that it was not correct politically to revert on promises (Peel had in his Tamworth manifesto suggested that he would preserve the Corn Laws). Disraeli saw Peel as being extremely ungentlemanly in his actions and saw that Peel’s acts were destined to consign the Conservative party to rubble. Indeed, the split that ensued was perhaps the worst party split ever in Britain and it took Disraeli almost 20 years to fully recover the party. Despite the obvious negatives of                                                                                                                259 T.A.Jenkins, Disraeli and Victorian Conservatism

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this event, it brought Disraeli to prominence and set him up as a future leading Conservative. It could be argued that had Peel not repealed the Corn Laws then Disraeli would never have been given the shoulder which he needed to lift himself up the parliamentary hierarchy. As such Bradford said that ‘the fall of Peel made Disraeli’s political career possible.’ Gladstone on the other hand followed the path of patronage in his political ascendancy from Peel. He is frequently described as ‘Peel’s political heir’260. He followed the generic pathway from apprentice to successor quite seamlessly. Gladstone even wrote that ‘Peel was most kind, nay fatherly…we held hands instinctively.’ Thus we see that Gladstone followed the standard political approach of ascendancy which although relying heavily on Peel, Disraeli probably owed more to Peel in getting to his position than Gladstone did. Disraeli had many handicaps such as his Jewish background, lack of a university education and sometimes odd social habits meaning that the opportunity which Peel presented to him in 1846 was perhaps the most valuable opportunity he could have received in order to begin his ascent to the top of the ‘greasy pole.’ The three great men’s political ideologies however were more similar than the forms of political ascendancy. Peel in his Tamworth manifesto set about the basis of his political philosophy. Professor Norman Gash described this as ‘the correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances’ and261 the need to ‘reform to survive.’262 This in essence has become the principle upon which the Conservative party is founded. As such, many of the ideas set about by Peel filtered through into those of Gladstone and Disraeli. As leader of the Liberal party, Gladstone put forward a political theory that had freedom and welfare at its core, yet he retained Conservative values of tradition, social inequality, and order. From an economic perspective, Gladstonian Liberalism certainly looked very similar indeed to the policies of Peel. There was an emphasis on limited government expenditure, free trade and low taxation. Gladstone developed the laissez-faire policies of Peel and actually became more radical in his welfare reforms - perhaps as a result of his strong religious beliefs (something that will be raised later). Hilton said of Gladstone that ‘Peel was the progenitor of Gladstonian Liberalism’ by which he meant that Peel’s policies acted as a precursor to Gladstone's and that both ideologies were cut from the same cloth. Likewise, the similarities between Disraeli’s conservatism and Peel’s conservatism are extensive. Both adopt the principle of a progressive reforming Conservatism. Indeed Blake says that the work of Peel and the 14th Earl of Derby ‘lay down the foundations for Disraeli’s later success.’263 Disraeli in particular highlighted the need to have preservation alongside advancement. For example he was an Imperialist who very much wished for Britain to remain as the great empire that she was, yet likewise, he understood the need to modernise in order to achieve this - realised in part by buying shares in the Suez Canal company and granting Queen Victoria the title of ‘Empress of India.’ He understood that

                                                                                                               260 T.A.Jenkins, Sir Robert Peel 261 Norman Gash, Peel 262 Norman Gash, Peel 263 Robert Blake, Disraeli (1967)

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change and adaptation had to be made in order to preserve the paternalistic society of Britain which he wanted to remain. Additionally we also see that Peel had an influence over the personality and man management of the men. For Gladstone Peel's effect was quite far-reaching, such that the politician John Morley said that Gladstone’s ‘whole habit of conducting public business still owed a great deal to Peel’s assumptions, his methods and even his phrases.’ The fact that Gladstone also continued to call himself a Peelite a decade after the death of the great man highlights the levels of respect and idolisation which Gladstone had for Peel. Gladstone’s time in Peel's cabinet from 1841-6 meant that he adopted the model of interventionism which was set out by Peel. Furthermore, just as in the case of Peel, Gladstone was often almost omnipotent when in power and both men chose to hold personal control over many aspects of government. Disraeli in just the same way witnessed Peel’s interventionism in action. Disraeli however saw the obvious flaws in what Peel was doing. For all of Peel's intelligence and orating talents, he was very poor at managing his party and cabinet. As such Disraeli learnt from Peel the importance of controlling the party such that those in his cabinet remained content (interestingly Thatcher made similar mistakes to Peel in 1990). Disraeli thus became a far more effective delegator of power than his counterparts, which ensured that his party popularity constantly remained. Disraeli learnt both from Peel's strengths as well as his downfalls in order to reach and remain at the ‘top of the greasy pole.’ To this day, Disraeli remains one of the most popular Conservative leaders due to his highly effective flattery and way with words, which made him in his later years, a likeable character amongst the Conservatives and the London crowd (The Carlton Club has more rooms named after Disraeli than anyone else). Furthermore, Disraeli ensured that his reputation with the monarchy was always supreme. He would frequently write letters to Queen Victoria and she described him as ‘my favourite Prime Minister.’264 Peel was also liked by the Queen but not in quite the same way. Victoria respected Peel but she loved Disraeli. She hated Gladstone. Disraeli thus took Peel’s example of appeasing the Queen and went further in his fawning of her. Finally then, we must look at what else Disraeli and Gladstone owed their careers too. For Gladstone this is relatively easy. He was the son of a wealthy merchant, went to school at Eton and read Classics and Mathematics at Oxford attaining a double first-class degree. Moreover, Gladstone was heavily influenced by the church. Both his parents were hazily religious and his father was of a Presbyterian background whilst his mother was said to have been ‘an evangelical of Scottish Episcopal origins.’265 Gladstone himself was baptised into the Church of England. His strong religious beliefs carried on into his political beliefs and as such we see that Gladstone owed much of his life and ways of thinking to the church. Indeed in 1838 he tried to force a religious mission upon the Conservative Party much to the dismay of virtually everyone within the party. Likewise he would, according to R. Jenkins, frequently

                                                                                                               264 Christopher Hibbert , Queen Victoria: A Personal History 265 Roy Jenkins, Gladstone

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‘answer political questions with over 150 words on religion’266. Therefore we can see that Gladstone owed just as much to his religious background as he did to Peel. Disraeli on the other hand made his way up the political ladder in a slightly different and more difficult manner. He was the son of a Jewish historian and literary critic Isaac D’Israeli. Despite this, his father turned his back on the Jewish religion and Disraeli was baptised as a child into the Church of England which proved to be fortunate in some ways as it allowed him to have a political career later in his life (the first practising Jewish MP, Lionel de Rothschild was only admitted in 1858). His family had relative wealth however they were not of immense wealth or an upper class background. Disraeli struggled at school and never went to university. He instead followed a part-time career in literacy, writing novels such as Vivian Grey and Sybil whilst living the life of a London socialite. In his early years he was almost always a controversial character as he dressed flamboyantly and was quite a womaniser (although almost always with older women). He gained moderate success from his books however until joining the world of politics, Disraeli was often lost and without purpose. By becoming an MP Disraeli discovered the field which he could excel at. He had known since a young age that he had wanted success and to be remembered however he has been unsure where he might find this. The opportunity Peel gave him in 1846 was for Disraeli his first true chance at gaining a public personal triumph and thus for Disraeli, the value of what Peel gave to him is absolutely immense. Therefore in conclusion, I believe that despite Gladstone being the obvious candidate for owing more to Peel, it was Disraeli who was truly in debt to Peel for his career. This is largely down to the political ascendancy which Peel granted Disraeli as well as laying the base from which Disraeli could set about his ideas of Victorian Conservatism and One Nationism. Disraeli was able to learn both from Peel's strength to reform and modernise as well as learning from his weaknesses in dealing with people and his party. Thus Disraeli became both an excellent Conservative as well as a fluid practitioner and man of words who is remembered fondly for his personality. Gladstone was indeed in debt to Peel however for Gladstone religion was his primary influence and not the effect of his mentor Peel. Gladstone maintained Peel's values of tradition, social inequality, and order throughout his career however for him community, religion and freedom were the driving force behind his political career.      

                                                                                                               266 Roy Jenkins, Gladstone

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What inspires? Multi-media project

By Donata von Behr, U6 Westal

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Commended - Donata von Behr

Cheltenham CollegeBath RoadCheltenhamGloucestershireGL53 7LD

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