The AbacusEdition #4

Sweet Victory Christmas Appeal: the

Kids CompanyBy Jack Darrant

KCLMS won a landmark victory last week in the West London round of UMKT’s Senior Maths Team Chal‐lenge (SMTC). Our team, led by Samuel Bird, included Andrew Dean, Kirsty Land and Iain Wright. he contestants endured several hours of tough competition from the brightest and best mathemati‐cians from 14 other schools. he SMTC involves questions of similar substance (if not style) to the Senior Maths Challenge papers all KCLMS students sat last month. he team’s achievement is made all the more impressive by it consisting solely of Year 12s, where other schools were able to enter two Year 13 students in their teams.

Commenting on his and his col‐leagues’ success, Samuel Bird told the press “Our strategy was to an‐swer the questions, and get them right. And that’s what we did.” his novel new tactic comes as a hammer blow to advocates of traditional strategies, which include not an‐swering questions or getting them wrong. One expert from the AQA exam board responded: “While an‐swering questions could be seen as risky, there are considerable beneits. For example, answering questions allows one the chance of getting marks, which can be a useful step

towards actually doing something. However, it is a stroke of genius to decide to get the questions right as well, as this is the most efficient way of getting them right. I would be very surprised if others did not seek to copy Mr Bird’s strategy in the fu‐ture.”

KCLMS will proceed into the na‐tional SMTC inal in February, in which competition will be even iercer. he team will have to hold its own against elite schools such as previous winners the Westminster, City of London Boys and Harrow- though we at the Abacus have every conidence in the ability of our con‐testants to win the inals as well.

By Libby Walker

his Christmas I am doing a fundraiser for he Kids Company a charity who help children and young people who have suffered se‐vere trauma, food insecurity, pover‐ty and even homelessness, Christ‐mas can be a distressing time. heir loneliness engulfs them as they com‐

pare their experience to those more fortunate. hey provide a Christmas event so these children are not alone on Christmas. At school on the 10th December we are asking that every‐body donate the value of their lunch approximately £3 to this cause. I will be coming round at form time in the

2 he Abacus

Strong support for student council proposals

morning for the collection all dona‐tions make such a difference.

For the exceptionally vulnerable chi ldren he Kids C ompany support, Christmas has oten been a time of devastating loneliness, shame and despair. Many would not receive simple acts of kindness like a hug, a present or a hot meal if they weren’t there to support them throughout Christmas and the New Year. Every year we honour the trust children place in us by holding a huge party so that all our children can feel the joy of being a child at Christmas.

Sadly, this year the need is greater than ever. his Christmas Day we will welcome over 3500 vulnerable children, young people and families and over 200 volunteers. A further 3500 will be supported out in the community with food and git parcels.

Children can enjoy good food, indi‐vidually wrapped presents, story‐telling, fun and games. hey can make hats and puppets, create a Christmas mural or join in fun ac‐tivities such as football and a boun‐cy castle! Volunteers work tirelessly with the Arts Team to make a mem‐

orable Christmas setting. hrough the children’s laughter we experience the potency of kindness and are moved by your commitment to helping us care for children who would otherwise be abandoned.

Kid's Company (established 1996) is a Registered Charity. To ind out more about them and their work, visit www.kidsco.org.uk/about-us

by Jack Darrant

Sources have conirmed to the Aba‐cus that the powers that be intend to establish some form of Student Council/Union at KCLMS within the next month or two. Proponents promise beneits in having a formal representative group of students who could share ideas with school management, organise events and maybe do something about the per‐manent bin and clock shortage. Stu‐dents seem to be overwhelmingly supportive of the idea, and so is this newspaper (provided any future Council doesn’t get strange ideas about running student media, as in other schools!)

We have also observed some early positioning from potential candi‐dates for any upcoming elections. It is easy to imagine the intense elec‐tion fever that could engulf the school were a Council to be set up. We are not a school that knows a ‘mid’ setting between apathy and massive enthusiasm for an idea. It would be a delight to report on.

Working proposals are sketchy, but we understand that students would elect a male and a female representa‐tive from each form to the Council. Members of the council would then have special areas of responsibility in which they would co-ordinate the council.

Here is a list of policies any candi‐dates for High Office would do well to support:

· Better provision of clocks, waste bins and recycling facilities

· he stocking of Toblerones, Diet Pepsi and pretzels in the vending machine

· Free jam doughnuts.

· he token offering of healthy food in the vending machine so that ev‐erybody can not buy it

· A doubling of the surface area of whiteboards in the school

· A solution to the problem of late

3he Abacus

Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell

Facebook.com/heAbacusNews

10 hings We Want To Know

Only Connect

What?

1. What will be in the Drama club’s Christmas performance?2. Why are there now even FEWER bins?3. Are we expected to go to the cafe‐teria bin just to sharpen a pencil?4. Oh, and why does everybody call it the cafeteria when no food is served there?Who thinks that writing their mo‐bile phone number on the white‐boards for all to see is a really good idea?6. Does anybody know what SUB‐DERMATOGLYPHIC actual ly means? he internet certainly doesn’t.7. Is it even a real word, or was it made up by evil liars with a count‐ing obsession?8. Why does KCLMS follow exactly one of its students on Twitter?9. How is it possible to lose a Wi-Fi signal when sitting just two metres from the nearest transmitter?10. Christmas: are we playing it cool or decking the halls?

and work-heavy language classes

· Did we mention world peace?

· he deportation of Michael Gove

· A large annual grant to journalists working for student media

· Replacement of subject assess‐ments with TV-viewing sessions

· Merger of KCLMS with Hogwarts

· Guaranteed victory over the likes of Westminster and Harrow schools in the SMTC. his is to be achieved by means of sabotage, iniltration, cheating and, above all, merit.

Any candidate running on such a platform would be certain to sweep onto the Student Council with very little opposition.

by Jack Darrant

Over 30 students have signed up for the KCLMS Only Connect tourna‐ment, which has been organised by Lauren and Finnbar. he question master will be none other than TV-star Mr Robson, who is rumoured to be the successor to Stephen Fry as the host of the BBC’s QI quiz show.

he preliminaries take place ater school on Tuesday, whilst the inals will be held in the assembly hall next week. he inals will be a highlight

of the school calendar, with contes‐tants able to invite relatives to watch them struggle in the fast-paced gen‐eral knowledge game. If the contest’s ‘major event’ status were ever in doubt, it has been cemented by talk that there will be cake on sale be‐forehand. If something warrants cake, it must be important.

Competing teams must select names which connect their members in some way. For the KCLMS tourna‐ment, these include ‘Young Money Cash Money Productions Presents’; ‘he Puzzlemasters’; ‘Isrageriastan’ and ‘he Puntertainers’. ‘Isragerias‐tan’ is a particularly intriguing con‐nection, (it sounds like a place name, but it doesn’t appear on Bing Maps) and one we hope to learn more about on the day.

Formulating questions for both pre‐liminary and inal rounds of the tournament is no mean feat, partic‐ularly when there are more than ten teams to account for. We will be par‐ticularly interested to see if there are any references to Rihanna’s music. ‘Young Money Cash Money Produc‐tions Presents’ would be great at those questions.

4 he Abacus

Who was James Clerk Maxwell?

Language Classes

Overhauled by Jack Darrant

he latest in our series of short bi‐ographies of KCLMS’ house ‘igures’.

James Clerk Maxwell is credited by Einstein as doing much of the work upon which the heory of Relativity is based. he Scottish physicist was the irst to theorise that electricity, light and magnetism are interlinked, one discovery of many which earned him his latter role as the irst ever Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge (wasn’t that a polytechnic in those days? Ed.).

Maxwell was born to a well-off fami‐ly in Edinbrugh’s New Town district in 1831. He had his irst scientiic paper published when he was just 15 years old, “On the description of oval curves and those having a plurality of foci”. It was a bestseller, particularly ater it made it into the Richard and Judy book club. In common with many well-educated Scottish people at the time, he irst went to universi‐ty at 16, moving from Edinburgh to Cambridge University ater three years.

Ater graduating, Maxwell switly became a respected member of the scientiic community. An essay of his on “he Stability of Saturn’s Rings’ (again, the ilm adaptation of that was a blockbuster) won a presti‐gious Adams Prize, and he was soon elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He is best remembered for his work during the 1860s, in which he devel‐oped the irst comprehensive under‐standing of electromagnetic radia‐

tion and the laws that govern it. It is less commonly understood that his contribution to mathematics was also signiicant, with his papers adding to the early development of control theory and the developing science of topology. An 1870 paper of his is titled “On reciprocal igures, frames and diagrams of forces”. hat’s right, it seems that even Maxwell had to spend good lengths of time drawing neat diagrams of lits, slopes and bits of string. It helps that he helped to develop the science behind colour photography, so he could even photograph the string that he was looking at if he so wished.

Aside from his formidable achieve‐ments in the ields of physics and mathematics, Maxwell was an un‐usual igure in the Victorian estab‐lishment. He was a keen poet who would oten recite his works whilst playing his guitar- a musical instru‐ment that was far less ubiquitous than it became in the latter half of the 20th century. His contempo‐raries described him as iercely intel‐ligent and also socially awkward, a combination that should not be un‐familiar to a school full of mathe‐maticians.

Maxwell died of stomach cancer at just 48 years old. His legacy is well recognised around the world, and particularly at King’s College Lon‐don, where he has been honoured with having a ‘chair’ in Physics and a building at the Waterloo campus named ater him.

by Jack Darrant

In a momentous new development, KCLMS management have decided to make the evening language class‐es voluntary. he move has been en‐dorsed by both by students who are eager to drop the classes at the irst opportunity, and by the more enthu‐siastic who are being encouraged to continue the course if possible. Transport for London, however, are understood to be disappointed at the loss of additional fare revenue.

Attendance igures for the language classes this term have been utterly dismal, and our Highly Esteemed Headteacher has made his state of ‘non impressedness’ (Please, please buy a thesaurus! Ed.) very clear. Also, it is understood that the school will consult students on what the rule should be for language classes for the new intake of students next September- speciically if classes should remain compulsory for all KCLMS students in their irst term . We are curious as to whether our re‐luctant language learners will de‐mand that next year’s students share their ‘pain’.

he school is keen to eliminate the waste of paying course fees for non-attenders, however it will continue to invest in the courses for those who want it. he beneits of employ‐ability, deeper linguistic understand‐ing and the expansion of one’s cul‐tural horizons are substantial.

5he Abacus

Inspirational Quote #4

6 he Abacus

#BrokenMaths no. 2

"What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9? 42."

by Varun

What is life? Do ghosts exist? Will we depart the same way that di‐nosaurs did? he answer to these questions do not rest within the hu‐man mind (nor does it within Wikipedia). Instead, it is buried deep inside what the nerd-iverse be‐lieve to be the supernatural force that controls all around us: 42.

If you haven’t read “he Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (or even viewed the far inferior movie), then allow me to drop in some back‐ground information. In the ancient planet of Magrathea, the supercom‐

puter, Deep hought, calculated the answer to Life, he Universe, and Everything to be – you guessed it – 42. A desperate search began to ind out WHY this is the case, only to conclude when I, your new supreme

ruler of the Milky Way Galaxy, inal‐ly uncovered the truth of its powers. So why 42?

1. 42 is a number, numbers are maths, and maths is life. hus, 42 is life.

2. he sum of the digits in 42 (4 + 2) – equals 6. 6 is a perfect number (the sum of all its factors except it‐self is 6 itself). Coincidence? I think not!

3. he total number of dots on two dices are 42. For sure, this means that our fate is decided by the roll of two dices, and the probability of any task being successful is exactly 1/42.

4. he average body temperature of live, healthy chicken rounds to 42°C.

5. 42 represented in binary is

101010; a curious pattern, don’t you think?

6. Brian ‘smiles-a-lot’ Cox once proved it. ‘Nuff said.

7. Given the correct assumption that Google knows all, google “the an‐swer to life, the universe, and every‐thing”. You’re welcome.

8. If you cut a hole through the cen‐tre of Earth, it would take you 42 minutes to fall through. If you would like to put this inding into practice, kindly be my guest.

9. I own a 42-inch TV.

10. he letter c shows up exactly 42 times in this article (I'm going to... verify this. Ed.) . Must…stop…typ‐ing to keep the tally at 42…to make a novel sparkle.

7he Abacus

It's inimitable!

he Faultless Fault In Our Stars

by HJ

A year or so ago, I heard about he Imitation Game and to be complete‐ly honest, I was extremely overjoyed. Not only was this movie about my favourite mathematician, Alan Tur‐ing, he was also played by Benedict Cumberbatch who some of you (all of you should) know plays the bril‐liant enigmatic Sherlock Holmes in the BBC adaptation by Steven Mof‐fatt. (Him. I'm still very unhappy about the jumping off the roof scene. Ed.) Alongside with Keira Knightley, as far as I was concerned, this was the perfect formula for an incredible ilm. Luckily I was able to watch he Imitation Game a few days earlier than the release date of the 14th November, and I can gladly tell you that it lived up to my very high expectations.

he Imitation Game was outstand‐ingly well paced and moving, it took the viewer through Turing’s story from 1939 to the end of the war when the Germans were defeated. As well as being extremely touching at moments, the ilm had a lot of funny moments that were absolute gems. Overall, he Imitation Game was an astonishing ilm and every‐thing was so well written, edited and acted. I feel as if I will not write a re‐view that will do this ilm the justice that it deserves so I urge you all to go and see this ilm for yourself.

by Amy Sellers

A few months ago, I saved up all my coins and pennies and notes to buy books. Lots and lots of books. No. 1 on the list was “Lolita”, No. 2 was “he Kite Runner”… “he Fault in our Stars” was number 7. I bought it with the intention of saving it for a very unassuming Tuesday.

I read it for readings sake, but it made me cry. I cried, and every time I re-read it (which is far too oten), I cry again. Words cannot even begin to describe how this novel made me feel. Never has the written word sparked such deep emotions in me, and never has a book made me think so much. About the sanctity of life, my own morality and above all; how unjustiiably unfair life really is.

I think I love this novel so much be‐cause it wasn’t what I expected. Death surprisingly, was not the main

objective of the book. It’s not about cancer either, not really. It centres around two teenagers, Hazel- Grace and Augustus Waters. And like all teenagers, they’re trying to see where they belong in the world. Un‐fortunately, they also know that they won’t belong in this world for very long.

Augustus, we ind, is a highly intelli‐gent, passionate and just generally beautiful human being. He holds an unlit cigarette in his mouth as a symbol of deiance, a way of win‐ning against the cancer. It makes me smile at just how much of a teenage he is, how much I see of myself in him. We always want the last word and we always want to win.

What makes Gus so loveable, so amazing, is that he’s human. He’s brave yes, but he’s also scared, scared of Oblivion, as he tells Hazel-Grace. hey were always going to fall in love, but their love is so untainted and pure, it makes you forget that they’re dying.

he whole thing is pretty raw, and real. It does a wonderful job of cele‐brating the sentimentality without shying away from the tough mo‐ments.

here’s a quote at the end of the book that I love. Fearing he’s losing Hazel to illness, Gus said: “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.” It gives me goose bumps every time I

read it. here’s nothing like youth and tragedy to make a novel sparkle.

8 he Abacus

by Joselyn Joanes

Sapere Aude 2: Update

Clue 861

Clue 496

Gsv ovggvi blf hvvp rh sviv. Wrw blf pmld gszg R ivzoob orpv grtvih. Gsvb ziv znzarmt! Gsv ovggvi p rh mlg gsv ovggvi blf dzmg. Blf dzmg gsv gsriw ovggvi lu gsv dliw orpv rm xrksvi ulin.

Remember:1. A box of chocolates is on offer

for the winner of Sapere Aude 2!2. Check the cafeteria wall out‐

side Mrs Riley's office for the latest clues

3. Printable Word versions of the clues are available from kclm‐

snews@yahoo.co.uk or Joselyn on request.

x = 0y = 0,1,2,3

y = x + 3y = 0,1,2,3

y = 0y = 0,1,2,3

y = x - 3y = 0,-1,-2,-3

9he Abacus

Personal Responsibility and Bystandingby HJ

he Bystander effect is known as a social psychological phenomenon. It refers to how individuals do not of‐fer any means of help to a victim where there are other people present. he probability of help is in‐versely related to the number of by‐standers present. he greater num‐

bers of bystanders present; the less likely it is that one on them will offer any form of help. However, this can be due to several variables such as ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffu‐sion of responsibility. he bystander effect was irst demonstrated in 1968 by John Darley and Bibb Latane af‐ter they became interested in the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

In a typical experiment, the partici‐pant is either alone or among a group of other participants and an emergency situation is staged and the researchers will measure the time it takes for them to intervene or even if they do. Oten by a large margin, the presence of others in‐hibits helping.

One of the experiments by Bibb La‐tane staged a situation where a woman was in distress, 70% of peo‐ple called for help ater they saw her fall but only 40% of people called for help when there were other people present.

Darley and Latane found out that there were 5 characteristics of emer‐gencies that affect bystanders:

1. Emergencies that involve threat of harm or actual harm. 2. Emergen‐cies that are unusual or rare 3. he type of action required in an emer‐gency 4. Emergencies that cannot be

predicted or expected 5. Emergen‐cies that require immediate action

Due to these 5 characteristics, by‐standers go through cognitive and behavioural processes:

1.. Notice that something is going on 2. Interpret that the situation is an emergency 3. Degree of responsibili‐ty felt 4. Form of assistance needed 5. Implement the action of choice

Notice

Darley and Latane tested the con‐cept of noticing which was one of the irst cognitive process a by‐stander will go through when in a situation where there is an emergen‐cy. hey staged an experiment where students were placed in a room ei‐ther alone or with two or three strangers to complete a question‐naire. Smoke was pumped into the room to stimulate an emergency whilst they completed their ques‐tionnaires and waited for the experi‐menter to return. When students were alone it was almost immediate‐ly when they realized that there was smoke (within 5 seconds) but when they were in a group it took them al‐most up to 20 seconds before they realized that there was smoke. Dar‐ley and Latane claimed this phe‐nomenon could be explained by the social norm of what is considered to be polite etiquette in public, polite‐ness which dictates that it is inap‐propriate to idly look around which may indicate that a person is noisy or rude. As a result passers-by are more likely to keep their attention to themselves when in a large group than when alone. herefore people who are alone are more likely to be aware of what is going on around

them therefore, more likely to notice someone in need of assistance.

Interpret

Once a situation has been noticed by the by the bystander, in order for them to intervene they must inter‐pret the incident as an emergency. According to social inluence, it is human nature to monitor the reac‐tions of other people in an emergen‐cy situation to see if others think that is necessary to intervene. If oth‐ers are not reacting to the situation, bystanders will interpret the situa‐tion as not an emergency and will not intervene. Referring back to the smoke experiment, even though stu‐dents in the groups had clearly no‐ticed the smoke which had become so thick that it was obscuring their vision and irritating their eyes or causing them to cough, they were still unlikely to report it. Only one participant in the group condition reported the smoke in the irst four minutes and by the end of the ex‐periment, no one from ive of eight groups had reported the smoke at all.

Degree of Responsibility

Darley and Latane determined that the degree or responsibility a by‐stander feels is dependant on three things: 1. Whether or not they feel the person is deserving of help 2. he competence of the bystander 3. he relationship between the by‐stander and the victim

Forms of Assistance

here are two categories of assis‐tance as deined by Darley and La‐tane

10 he Abacus

1. Direct intervention, directly help‐ing the victim 2. Detour interven‐tion, reporting an emergency to the authorities

Implementation

Ater the bystander has gone through the irst four steps, they must implement the action of choice.

he implementation time can be af‐fected by who is present at the scene. In one study, where there were chil‐dren present, bystanders felt an in‐crease of responsibility but this didn’t result in signiicant differ‐ences in intervention.

According to Latane and Darley, ambiguity is one factor that affects whether a person assists another in need despite the number of by‐standers around. For example, the more information someone has the more willing they are to offer any help. In a situation where a person is unsure if the victim needs any help, a high ambiguity situation, the reac‐tion time is slow. i.e. hearing some‐one fall but unsure if they are hurt or not. However, in a low ambiguity situation the bystander’s reaction time is quicker. i.e. hearing someone yelling out for help. In some cases of high ambiguity, it can take a person or a group up to ive times as long before taking action than in cases of low ambiguity where the bystander is sure that the victim needs help.

Another factor whether a bystander intervenes or not may have to do with the familiarity of the environ‐ment. If a bystander is familiar with the environment in which the emer‐gency occurs, the more likely they are to get help this is due to the fact that it is our nature to feel safe be‐fore we help others in need.

Research done by Garcia in 2002 in‐dicates that priming a social context may inhibit helping behaviour. For example, people who imagine them‐

selves around one other person or being in a group of people can affect the person’s willingness of help.

However, the time in which a person in a group may react to an emergen‐cy situation can also be affected by the cohesiveness of the group. If a person is very familiar with the group they are with, the more likely they are to take action and help, this is known as a high cohesive group. An experiment by Rutkowski re‐vealed that high cohesive groups are more willing to take action but low cohesive groups were the slowest to respond to the victim. However, the experiment also showed that if there

were more people in a high cohesive group the quicker the response but if there were more people in a low co‐hesive group the slower the response. Altruism research shows that the group size can encourage or inhibit helping. However, it also shows that the relationship between the bystander and the victim also af‐fects whether the bystander helps or not. An experiment of students show that if the victim is wearing a football shirt that the bystander sup‐ports, the more willing they are to help, rather than if the victim is just wearing a plain shirt or a shirt of a team the bystander doesn’t support. hus, helping behaviour is more

likely and encouraged where there are similarities between the person being helped and the person helping.

he in d i ng s o f L e v i n e an d Crowther in 2008 illustrated that in‐creasing the group size inhibited the intervention in a street violence sce‐nario when bystanders but encour‐aged when bystanders were friends. hey also found out that if the vic‐tim and the bystander are the same gender, this will encourage interven‐tion. hey concluded that the by‐stander effect is not a generic conse‐quence of increasing group size but when bystanders share group-level psychological relationships, group size can both encourage as well as inhibit helping.

Darley and Latane also conducted an experiment on the diffusion of responsibility. heir indings suggest that in case of an emergency, when there are more people around, the less likely someone is to help be‐cause they believe that someone else will take responsibility. hey may as‐sume that another person may be more qualiied than them such as a doctor or a police officer and that their intervention may be un-need‐ed. hey may also be afraid of the le‐gal consequences of offering inferior and possibly dangerous assistance.

In some parts of the world, there are laws implemented to keep by‐standers responsible when they wit‐ness an emergency. For example, in the USA, Good Samaritan laws have been put in place to protect by‐standers who acted in good faith. Many organizations are including bystander training to help people become more assertive in emergen‐cy situations and understand that they have to report attacks as part of being a good citizen.

11he Abacus

The Revision Guide

Physics

1. In a particularly heated debate about the merits of the Grid method, a student is pushed on the shoulder by a naysayer. If the stu‐dent uses magic PSHCEE energy of j Joules which they direct with the force of their will, towards their arm, then what effect does this have on the Young’s Modulus of their elbow?

2. Which would you rather be: tough, strong or ductile?

3. You are asked to draw a map of part of the school. To do this, you are provided with metre sticks and a tape measure. Naturally, you choose to conduct a metre stick ight in‐stead of the cartographic work in hand. he metre sticks have com‐

pressive strength of 5 petapascals, and are inextensible. With what force would you need to hit your op‐ponent’s stick in order to break it?

Computing

1. Write a program to eat chocolate using a while loop.

2. Write a program to do your maths homework without using an “=” sign.

3. Write a program to write an email to all your friends with the text “25+25=50” while making your pro‐gram impossible for anyone (includ‐ing you) to understand.

Statistics and Decision

1. During my lunch break, I want to buy an Egg McMuffin from McDon‐alds; a Bargain bucket from KFC; a BLT from Subway; chicken and

chips from Chicken Palace; and some doughnuts from Greggs. I can only cross the road from let to right, and I can’t pass the same shop twice. Using some unpronounceable algorithm or other, ind me the shortest route I can take to get my

lunch. What is the probability that I will either die or run out of money before the end of my meal?

2. How do I love thee? Count the ways.

12 he Abacus

he Radio Station hat Burned housands of Dollars

by Jack Darrant

Last summer, a Canadian radio sta‐tion burned CA$5,000 (£2,700) as part of a competition to promote the station. CBC reported:

AMP started the contest last Tuesday, calling it “the ultimate social experi‐ment.” All listeners who voted would be entered into a draw for the $5,000. If “Bank” won the vote, one name would be drawn to get the money. If “Burn” prevailed, well, the cash would go up in smoke.

Listeners were invited to vote by tweeting the station with the hash‐tags #Bank or #Burn. Some 54% vot‐ed to burn the money, an option that the station explained worked on the premise that “If you aren’t guaran‐teed to win, why should anyone else?”. he station proceeded to post a video of the money being burned in a crematorium.

Unsurprisingly, the move provoked a massive outcry. To burn money at all, let alone such a large amount of it, is absolutely reprehensible: if one needs money so little that you feel able to burn it, then there are bil‐lions of people who need it more

than you do. he only acceptable course of action in that case is to en‐sure that the money goes to some of them. here is no difference be‐tween taking a match to legal tender and deliberately depriving the homeless person you walk past on the way to work of blankets.

What is also disturbing about this competition is the rather vindictive principle behind it. he competition did not constitute gambling- it didn’t cost anything to enter- but the ma‐jority of entrants decided to deny others the prospect of winning (and throw away their own chance in the process). Not only is that entirely ir‐rational, it’s nasty. Certainly, nobody deserves to have $5,000 fall into their lap, but that doesn’t warrant throw‐

ing away the money. Of course, my socialist instinct would be to give all the entrants $1, or to give them all 50 cents and donate half the money to charitable causes- although there are obvious practical arguments against that!

If there is good fortune to be had, somebody may as well have it. But the Twitter-dwellers who voted to burn the money are not to be blamed- however illogical 54% of them were. he organisation which presented them with this false choice is wholly liable for this ethical offence. AMP Radio went about cre‐ating publicity for itself in what was undoubtedly a novel way, and it suc‐ceeded. hey say that “all publicity is good publicity”. I doubt that. I think that having millions of people con‐demn an organisation is bad for its long-term interests.

3. Because I am culturally impover‐ished, my favourite pastime is rear‐ranging my only three books, Peepo, he Very Hungry Catterpillar and A Brief History of Time in random combinations on my otherwise hor‐ribly empty bookshelf. In how many ways can I arrange my books with‐out having any of them next to each other?

Core

1. Find the equations with which to represent the Olympic rings, whilst inding the points of intersection. Provide a full proof, and remember to use circular logic when consider‐ing circles.

2. Is it appropriate to complete a square in order to calculate the ra‐dius of circle? If so, how can I use circles to calculate the area of a pan-dimensional, wibbly-wobbly polyhe‐dron?

Mechanics

1. To punish yourself for needing to buy stationery, you visit a branch of WHSmith, where you ind low qual‐ity versions of what you actually need at three times what you can ac‐tually afford. Nursing a deep sense of resentment, you carry your haul to the front of the shop. You join the queue for the single open till.

a. he queue is 300 metres long. You start from rest, and accelerate at 0.0000005 metres per second. How long does it take you to reach the front?

b. When you reach the cashier, she grunts at a stack of mangy chocolate bars. What is the impulse, in Joules, that makes you buy one?