Sixth Form Mercury, January 2017
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Sixth Form Mercury By the students, for the students.
Volume 6, Issue 4, January 2017
January edition
Generation why? By Alexander Dang Many economists today worry about intergenerational ‘fairness’. But is there such a widening gap, and is this really a problem?
the distribution of wealth amongst different groups of the population. Since the crisis, it has been claimed that younger generations have suffered disproportionately, and are hit hardest by government spending cuts.
The 2008 financial crisis was a massive blow to the living standards of people around the world. After a slow recovery, GDP per capita only rose above its pre-crisis peak after June 2015 (according to the Office of National Statistics). But there are many flaws in using GDP as a measure of living stand-
ards. One flaw is that it fails to show
A report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) in September found that the median net wealth of those born in the early 1980s is £27,000. This is the number gained by subtracting liabilities (such as loans and mortgages), from assets (such as savings and investments).
Want to write for the Sixth Form Mercury? It is open to all sixth formers with an interest in writing! Contact either Tommy MacGillivray or Matthew Kayanja for more information: Email:
[email protected]
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When those born in the early 1970s were at the same age, they had almost twice as much, £53,000. For the first time since World War II, a generation has had lower incomes in early adulthood than the previous one. Will the situation worsen for those born in the 1990s and the 2000s? The Institute says: ‘the Great Recession hit the pay and employment of young adults the hardest’. The problem is also due to rising house prices, not just in London but nationwide. The charity Shelter predicts that, by 2020, someone will need a salary of £64,000 to buy their first house. This figure rises to £106,000 for the capital. Home ownership rates have plummeted from 70.3% in 2003 to 63.8% today. When people spend ages waiting to get on the housing ladder, they have to endure high rents. In London, rents have increased by an average of 5.3% each year since 2011. If this continues, the city risks a shortage of young professionals, such as police officers, doctors, nurses and teachers. Even graduates starting work in the supposedly well-paid banking sector are affected. A rather gloomy BBC article from 2015 details a whole range of causes for this current housing crisis. They include a labour shortage, a lack of building materials, and a bureaucratic planning policy. Of course, it is not all doom and gloom. There are notable examples of the gov-
ernment supporting young people. You may have heard of, or even taken part in, the National Citizen Service (NCS), a volunteering scheme for 16 to 17 year olds. NCS costs about £1500 per person, but state subsidies reduce this to £50. This scheme started in 2011, despite a massive budget deficit and a stagnant economy.
‘For the first time since World War II, a generation has had lower incomes in early adulthood than the previous one. Will the situation worsen for those born in the 1990s and the 2000s?’
Moving away from money-related matters, the wider perspective must also be considered. Young people enjoy ever increasing life expectancy; technology is always advancing; and there has been a long term decrease in crime. In conclusion, one can't say that being born after a certain date means a life of hardship and dissatisfaction - of course not. Yet the gap between different generations is not insignificant. To repeat: it is the first time since World War II that the incomes of a generation have been worse than the one before.
Many people, like myself, go to school by bus. We may take for granted that travelling on London’s buses and trams is free. However, before 2006, a single journey actually cost half the adult fare. Today this would add up to almost £300 a year!
Apio knows nano By Daniel Apio It sounds impossible, improbable, fantastical - like something more reminiscent of the future than the dreary present we currently inhabit - but if you just take a look on the internet then you will learn that the field of nanotechnology has been around and growing for longer than you probably thought. Recently, in October 2016, the Nobel Prize committee decided to award Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard
L. Feringa the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their revolutionary work in this field - the design and creation of molecular machines. They built a range of devices smaller than a single nanometre (this is the length of three gold atoms positioned next to each other, or half the diameter of a human hair), ranging from a fully steerable nanocar to molecular muscle fibres.
The idea of nanotechnology was first invented by the American physicist Richard Feynman (who played bongos in his spare time, interestingly), who suggested that scientists could develop smaller and smaller tools to directly manipulate atoms in order to create a newer, more powerful versions of the field of synthetic chemistry in his famous “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” lecture.
Sixth Form Mercury, January 2017
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surface, the fullerene molecules form a Van Der Waals bond that fixes the car to the surface. When the foil is heated to 200®C the fullerenes rotate a full 360® on the axle formed by the bond between the carbon atoms on the fullerene and the Carbon atom on the end of the alkyl chain. The Carbon-Carbon single bond provides no obstacle to rotation while the fullerene stays fixed to the surface; this means the car begins to roll forward on the foil. You may think that nanotechnology is still light-years away from accomplishing anything sensible like the radio waves that ferry your Snapchat messages to your friends or the processors in your computer that let you procrastinate in 1080p on the internet.
He wanted to be able to synthesis molecules through mechanical means instead of mixing together ingredients and providing energy. These molecular machines could be used to synthesis more molecules, aid in the many essential chemical reactions that take place in the body to improve health or just create denser computer circuitry. This sounded impossible at the time: the wavelength of light is too big to allow us to view atoms with microscopes and it seemed we could never create tools to manipulate them through mechanical means. But in 1986 former Nobel Prize winners Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer built the scanning tunnelling microscope, a device that uses the effect of quantum tunnelling to identify and locate individual atoms by recording the changes in current across its microscopic probe, images like the one above of a silicon surface could then be produced. The STM could also be used to manipulate individual atoms by running a current through the tip to create a bond. Scientists were given the tools to do the job and thus field of nanotechnology was born. We now have more sophisticated means of manipulating matter at the molecular level; scientists have developed different molecules that move in one direction when supplied with a specific amount of energy. The stimulus could be a change in pH, light intensity, temperature, chemical energy or the presence of an electric current; scientist have produced switches, propellers, motors and muscles made from
‘You may think that nanotechnology is still lightyears away from accomplishing anything sensible, like the radio waves that ferry your Snapchat messages to your friends or the processors in your computer that let you procrastinate on the internet. However, there are already nanomaterials being put to everyday use’ molecules. The nanocar above is made from four fullerene molecules each containing 60 carbon atoms joined by an Hshaped chassis made from alkyl chains. When this molecule is placed on a gold foil
However, there are already nanomaterials being put to everyday use through nanoscale additives and treatments. Silver Oxide molecules are mixed into clothing fibres to reduce wear and tear and keep them smelling fresh for longer. Nanoscale treatments in a 500ml bottle can be used on phones to create hydrophobic surfaces that repel water and moisture in the air while allowing you phone to function as normal. I think that society will begin to see the applications of molecular machinery within the next decade; its many applications will undoubtedly have wide ranging impacts on shaping the progression of technology in the future.
Sixth Form Mercury, January 2017
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From wed to dead - for the sake of our Spanish ed. By Robert Lander On a damp and chilly Monday evening, eight A-Level Spanish students, in the company of Mrs O’Donnell and Mr Elwood, made their way to the newly established Cervantes Theatre in London to enjoy a performance of ‘Bodas de Sangre’, which translates roughly to ‘Blood Wedding’. The sombreness of the play’s title perfectly complemented the theatre’s rather bizarre setting – underneath a rustic railway bridge in a small yet bustling Spanish quarter of London.
a dark forest with some, ahem, ‘questionable’ costume choices. Who knew there are shirtless lumberjacks lurking in the Spanish woods after midnight?
The theatre, being a new venue, required us to leave the auditorium so that a set change could be instigated. This gave us a breath of fresh air with which we could soak up the Spanish quarter once again, along with all of its refreshing sounds.
Once we took our seats in this intimate venue with around 100 seats, the sounds of trains above our heads appeared to set the scene for what was about to come. Stereotypical Spanish lateness did not dampen the mood, since we were treated to scene after scene of simple yet effective staging. The original play, written by Federico García Lorca, tells the story of a bride who runs away from her groom after their wedding and escapes with another guest to the forest. This made for a yo-yo of emotions throughout, as the play progressed from the jubilation of an after-party through to the silence of
attempt at trying to understand a performance entirely in the Spanish language, but also our confusion about how this theatre actually made a profit! Throughout the performance, we must have seen more than 20 different actors and actresses on the stage at any one time, before we appeared to be rudely interrupted as the interval arrived.
Despite the sombre note with which we left the theatre once again after the final funeral scene, we re-appeared into lively London once again, pondering the Hispanic world we had just been in.
I won’t spoil the ending, although you can take a pretty good guess from the play’s title! The concentration on all of our faces (even Mrs O’Donnell’s!) was not only a reflection of our solid
I feel like going to see a performance in English would help really consolidate what we gained from this slightly incomprehensible but enriching evening! Thank goodness for the English summary, Mrs O’Donnell!
From the Editors We’re back! Hopefully everyone had a restful Christmas holidays; now we look forward to the coming year with all the challenges it brings. No matter what it is, A levels, university applications, extra-curricular pursuits, a word of wisdom: remember to take some time off, relax, allow the stress to dissipate. Work hard, play hard, gang. Thanks, Matthew and Tommy.
