Abacus #13

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The Abacus No. 13- KCLMS Newspaper of the Year Since our last edition, KCLMS has had extensive redecoration both indoors and outdoors, with trendy, geometric spirals creeping round from our wall facing Kennington Road to cover the walls (and windows) of the Annexe and spreading their geometric tentacles along the corridors of the main building. It is understood that management is considering a further expansion of the spirals to decorate the desks, uniform for students, the ID badge lanyards and the lightswitches. One senior member of statold the Abacus: "At irst it was just a bit of mathsy fun, but we've created a monster. Once the spiral begins, it never stops; it's taking over the school. Students should take my advice and oer no resistance to their fractal overlords." It would appear that KCLMS wants to add more character to its environment. Measures include the installation of a homely log ire, terrible paintings by ive year olds, the placing of photographs of random people around the school and new paint/sticker work. he decoration scheme coincides with a move by the school to rename the classrooms ater mathematicians, physicists, engineers, computer scientists and economists. Engaging the students in selections is a wise move, as unpopular names would be reduced to dusty, forgotten faces sitting ignored in the corner of the room. So it wouldn't be much of a change if a room was named ater Nick Clegg. KCLMS Decor Spirals Out Of Control

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Featuring news of decoration, EPQs, coaches and the impressive record of the late John Nash.

Transcript of Abacus #13

Page 1: Abacus #13

The AbacusNo. 13- KCLMS Newspaper of the Year

Since our last edition, KCLMS has had extensive redecoration both in‐doors and outdoors, with trendy, ge‐ometric spirals creeping round from our wall facing Kennington Road to cover the walls (and windows) of the Annexe and spreading their geomet‐ric tentacles along the corridors of the main building. It is understood that management is considering a further expansion of the spirals to decorate the desks, uniform for stu‐dents, the ID badge lanyards and the lightswitches. One senior member of

staff told the Abacus: "At irst it was just a bit of mathsy fun, but we've created a monster. Once the spiral begins, it never stops; it's taking over the school. Students should take my advice and offer no resistance to their fractal overlords."

It would appear that KCLMS wants to add more character to its environ‐ment. Measures include the installa‐tion of a homely log ire, terrible paintings by ive year olds, the plac‐

ing of photographs of random peo‐ple around the school and new paint/sticker work. he decoration scheme coincides with a move by the school to rename the classrooms ater mathematicians, physicists, en‐gineers, computer scientists and economists. Engaging the students in selections is a wise move, as un‐popular names would be reduced to dusty, forgotten faces sitting ignored in the corner of the room. So it wouldn't be much of a change if a room was named ater Nick Clegg.

KCLMS Decor Spirals Out Of Control

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he golden reputation of KCLMS was tarnished this month when signs appeared outside its entrances. he signs, which displayed some of the most detailed and accurate map‐ping known to man, shamed the school by naming it as 'King's Math School', much to the disgust of all who wish to resist the encroachment of Americanisms on our precious language.

But's it's all AOK as the school illed out some forms to touch base with the sign company. Sources quote the nice man from the sign company as saying "Gee, what can we do to put things right and make you smile?" Soon enough the new, British En‐glish signs were unveiled, celebrated with a hamburgers and a brass band playing "the Star-Spangled Banner". A man dressed up as a giant letter 's' spoke for us all when he cried 'yesses to esses!'.

1. Have Americans taken over the signmaking industry?

2. Why is there a giant funnel/vortex/cone in King's Cross station?

3. What is all this building work actually for?

4. Who gets the good lockers next year?

5. Did someone from Trinity College Cambridge do some‐thing to offend Queens' Col‐lege once? Was this in the 18th century?

6. Did Michael Gove write the AQA exam papers?

7. Why would somebody put lapjacks behind the useless Boost bars in the vending ma‐chine?

8. What are these 'EPQs' you speak of?

9. Is, as the comment on the stu‐dent noticeboard suggests, smiling really crucial to avoid h8ers? If so, how does Andy Murray manage?

10. Who's laughing now?

by HJ

Never has Hitler become more relat‐able than ater the AQA AS Level Comp 1 exams.

Hitler reacts to Comp 1 videos were created let, right and centre for AS students to vent at AQA about how atrocious the exams went. Capture the Sarrum? Lou? FEN??? Don't even mention Comp 2.

But what were AQA's motives when they wrote the 2015 Comp papers? Let's explore the ive main reasons behind this massacre:

1. Probably the most reasonable the‐ory of all: A levels are changing next year so AQA wanted to set them‐

selves a good reputation. By making the exam harder, they are able to make next year's exam easier thus setting them a better reputation be‐cause the average grade will increase.

2. hey lost all their iles in a mas‐sive ire started by a few angry bad‐gers and AQA rewrote the exam the night before and forgot that Wiki‐Books existed.

3. hey forgot how real chess worked and decided to create "Cap‐ture the Sarrum" and vaguely re‐membered FEN. hey decided to implement that into an 18 mark question to prove that they do know what chess is. But in actual fact they don't (ranks and iles??)

4. hey enjoyed the "Hitler reacts to…" videos so much that they de‐cided to read up on all the possible questions they could have asked on student room and WikiBooks and did everything that people did not expect.

5. hey decided to be edgy and "down with the kids" because they were afraid of being too oldL. hey also thought that picking the most random questions would be a good test for us all.

Fingers crossed grade boundaries ae low enough for us all to pass with lying colours, may we wish upon a lying pig.

What was AQA's

problem?

Mapgate Shakes School

10 hings We Want To Know

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by Jack Darrant

Some KCLMS students recieved quite a shock when the Student Fi‐nance England rep give a talk on the funding available to university stu‐dents. So if you were distracted by the alarming cost of accomodation or the cost of fees, we have the key points to explain the mystery of stu‐dent inance.

You pay nothing upfront, and only make repayments at 9% of what you earn over £21,000 per year in the fu‐ture. he system is designed so ev‐eryone can go to university without fear of unffordable repayments.

Student loan repayments are more like a tax than a debt. he 'loan'

does not affect your credit score; if your income falls you pay less; and it gets written off ater 30 years. Be‐cause most people will have huge 'debts' they will never repay the en‐tire loan before it written off. Mon‐eySavingExpert.com advises that, depending on your own circum‐

stances, this means it is probably not worth paying off more than you need to.

If your household has a low in‐come, you might recieve more. his is supposed to make it fairer for stu‐dents whose parents may be less able to contribute to their living costs. Similarly, those studying away from home and in London are eligible for bigger Maintenence Loans in recog‐nition of your higher living costs.

Statistics is ridden with injustice and hatred. Histograms are the embodi‐ment of this exploitation of good-hearted working class numbers. 'How so?' I hear you ask. But recall that histograms, in order to calculate frequency densities, divide all num‐

bers- ruthlessly- into classes. Under a just system, class divisions will be swept away and historams will show just one frequency density.

Student Money Matters

Idea #1: Ban Histograms

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by Jack Darrant

Pride Month in 2015 will be re‐membered for the momentous ex‐pansion of same-sex marriage to all ity states of the US ater its Supreme Court declared remaining statewide bans unconstitutional. By a slender majority of just 5 judges to 4, the Court declared that the bans contradicted the right of citizens to equal protection from the state un‐der the Fourteenth Amendment.

he ruling has immediate effect as the Supreme Court is the highest law-interpreting body in the country. hus there has been cele‐bration around the world as the patchwork of rules varying from state-to-state, and in some cases

county-to-county, was swept away overnight on Friday 26th. his is not to say the move has been universally popular, with some groups opposing the move on 'moral' grounds and others arguing that the right of indi‐vidual states to deine marriage has been violated. However mainstream conservative politicians who have opposed same-sex marriage in the past have accepted that it the change should not be repealed.

he ruling follows the recent intro‐duction of marriage equality in Ire‐land (following landslide approval by the Irish public in a referendum) and, with less publicity, Pitcairn Is‐land. he island, which has a popu‐lation of 48, are a British Overseas Territory in the Paciic Ocean.

he Guardian newspaper inter‐viewed one island resident about the law change which, in common with other legal changes, was publicised by pinning notices outside the island's town hall and general shop. It reported: "[the resident] said she knew of just one islander who had identiied as gay, and that was a long time ago." he island continues to live in hope.

he Netherlands was the irst coun‐try to introduce equal marriage, in 2001, years before the UK even re‐congised civil partnerships. At the time the only official recognition of same-sex couples was the London Partnerships Register introduced by the then Mayor, Ken Livingstone, but London did not have the powers to give it any legal force. In 2005, civil partnerships were introduced throughout the UK, conferring most of the legal beneits of marriage but stopping short of full equality. As things stand, Northern Ireland is the only country within the UK where same-sex marriages are not recog‐nised.

by Varun

Extended Proliic Qualiications? Extra Pungent Quavers?? Elephants Party Quietly???? As the world awakes from a many-month long hi‐bernation packed with maths and physics and maths, the quantity of question marks in each sentence spoken in regards to EPQs increases exponentially to the point that they reek of redundancy(???? ????).

We all knew one of these things un‐til *it happened*. When exam revi‐sion evolved and grew more power‐ful, EPQs became endangered, soon to be on the brink of extinction. Most of us have forgotten what our projects were. Some of us have even forgotten that they exists. Just like an ancient story that has dissolved into a myth, the remains of our research are archived in poorly preserved folders (you might want to check the Recycling Bin to see if they're still there!).

When we inally dig up our work, it may take many months to retain knowledge of key skills such as the darn Harvard referencing system, bibliographing (if the word exists) and most importantly…pointless Googling for hours at end. Of course, one saving grace is that the inal submission date is at around January - of course, during now and then, we have two and a half months of NOT working but relaxing, fol‐lowed by two months more of NOT working but frantically battling

UCAS, followed by another two months and more of homework, re‐vision, and coursework.

Hmm, come to think of it, I think putting it off may not be the best op‐tion! Remember, EPQs count for UCAS points, personal statement material, and winning hearts of the beloved university recruiters.

But fear not! Also remember that, when in doubt, EPQ obviously stands for:

Eagles Play the Cello.

EPQ? Doesn’t that stand

for…?

In the name of pride

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KCLMS has gained two new clubs in the atermath of exams, as students emerge, blinking in the sun and re‐discovering leisure activities. Lukas has instigated a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, of which Jordan is the DM (yes, we haven't a clue what that means either). It is said there was overwhelming demand to participate. Also a new Debating So‐ciety has been set up, though of course it could never be quite the same as the shortlived 'Phat Ques‐tions'. he DebSoc voted unani‐mously in its irst meeting in favour of a motion supporting drug legali‐sation.

he Abacus also understands that moves are afoot to establish a Maths Club, for all those keen mathemati‐cians among us who haven't quite got their ix of number-crunching from the rest other activities of the school.

MSD:

1. In a given A Level Mathematics course, the average number of prob‐ability distributions to be learned is 2. Can this situation be modelled us‐ing Dead French Fish distribution to predict the most probable number of probability distributions to be learned?

XC:

1. Take a few hours this week to re‐search what the topic of your EPQ was. If in doubt about how to ind out, research the research methods you used for your EPQ.

Physics

1 . h e h a l f - l i f e o f p u r e Kudosium-42ej, the nuclear fuel used in Chenobyl power station, is 20 years. Assuming that one mole‐hill of the substance was released into the atmosphere, calculate the radioactivity of Welsh daffodils.

MCO:

1. Differentiate

2. Prepare a presentation on e, ex‐plaining where it came from, why it gets absolutely everywhere (tip: compare its pervasiveness with the Eye of Providence. Coincidence? Eye think not) what type of car it drives and how nice its mother is.

3. Factorise EE, expressing it as a multiple of phone masts, inefficient call centres and Kevin Bacon adverts.

MME:

1. Just in case you haven't done enough differential equations yet, ind an expression for the rate of change of the rate of change of the rate of change of the altitude/tem‐

perature/volume ratio of a cup of Starbucks coffee held by a man run‐ning down the 'up' escalator in Bank tube station. When the coffee is 3 degrees above Absolute Zero, the man is descending at a speed of 0.05 metres per decimal-hour and spilling 500 ml of coffee per second.

2. A student collides with one or two Mechanics exams, ater which ze proceeds to study exactly zero new topics in Mechanics. Calculate the change in momentum of the student's studies.

Miliband Reacts To Election Result:

New clubs launched

The Revision Guide

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Ah, the life of a teen-ager. One minute you're swotting away for your Gravel Studies exams, the next you're swapping vinyl records with your friends in the local opium den. But if you're reading this you've made the smart decision to take time off from your adventures and having 'da-lolz' with other teen-agers and stop to think about your future.

You might be thinking of going to university. As you live in Britain, your teachers are probably advising you to apply to Oxbridge or Cam‐

ford, Durwick or Banterbury. hey say you should pay 9,000 Earth Pounds a year to study your ingers off for 26 weeks (pt, you get even fewer weeks to study with your teen-ager friends) and take your degree in a country where Mathematics is not even a recognised religion.

But we would like to tell you of an exciting venture in elite Higher Edu‐c a t i o n , w h o s e c o n s t r u c t i o n bankrupted the government of Ku‐dos twice despite a hety grant from the EU and the Mayor of London. Yes, the University of Croydon and Western Kudos (UCWK) could be the terriic opportunity you are overlooking.

UCWK has academic credentials that put your universities to shame. And we offer a student lifestyle that no fun-loving British teen-ager could hope to beat. So read our Fre‐quently Asked Questions to ind out of UCWK should be on your UCAS application (answer: yes!)

What courses do you offer?

Our undergraduate offer is a 5.37 year course we call a Quest. Students can take Quests in:

Shepherding Sciences; Cat Repos‐session; Media Studies; Humorous Mathematics; heological Mathe‐matics; Abacus Technology; Abacus Technology with Telegraphy; Math‐ematics And Party Tricks; Monty Python Recital Skills; English Litera‐ture; Instant Coffee Science; Bailout Economics and Mathematics And How To Solve All hose Mysteries In Life Like How Does Graffiti Get On Every Wall Near Train Tracks Even he 10 Foot High Ones Arts (MAHTSATMILLHDGGOEWNT‐TETTFHOA). MAHTSATMILL‐HDGGOEWNTTETTFHOA is our most popular course, accounting for 65% of Quest admissions.

What are the entry requirements?

All courses require an A grade at A Level Mathematics. All applicants are invited to interview, where they are assessed on a) their ability to re‐cite the lyrics to Dark Lord Funk or What Does the Fox Say? and b) whether the admissions tutor likes the look of their face or not. Alter‐natively, all requirements are waved if you can get a high score on Agar.

What the tuition fees?

his is one of the great advantages of attending UCWK. Instead of charg‐ing cash fees, the entire faculty to which you are applying visits your house at interview. If they like any‐thing, they take it. Even when they have taken walls or electrical wiring (some parts of Kudos have a serious raw materials shortage) students ind the cost of rebuilding their

house to be cheaper than British university fees.

What is the cost of living like?

Local shepherds are happy to pro‐vide alfresco accommodation FREE OF CHARGE in exchange for your assistance in managing their goat herds for one day a week.

Living loans are available from the Kudos government are available, however you are advised not to rely on this as it's not clear who the gov‐ernment is at the moment. Even then, neither 'government' has real money. Instead, bring a 50p coin with you. his will buy enough Eu‐ros for you to live like a king.

What will student life be like?

We know that you teen-agers like to have fun, even ater your bedtime. So ater consulting our current stu‐dents, we introduced some transfor‐mative changes. From now on the curfew will be 6.35pm rather than 6.30. We have also improved the food: you will be able to choose be‐tween a British-style Cheekios Nan‐dos and a wide range of pea-based yoghurts from our own café, Dis‐gustingos.

No nightclubs have been established yet in Kudos but we can meet all your clubbing needs right on cam‐

pus. Every Friday night we hold an Old Skoool Teen-age Disco. hey have a reputation for being very wild- our students get wild on or‐ange squash and dance at a high tempo to Neil Diamond and S Club 6 'hitz'!

Come and Study in Kudos!

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John Nash (credit: Wikimedia

Commons)

By CJM

John Forbes Nash Jr., (1928-2015) was a mathematician best known for his development of game theory, and he also made contributions to calculus. However, in the non-math‐ematical community, he unfortu‐nately appears to be better known because someone called Russell Crowe pretended to be him while being ilmed. his may be because most people prefer ilms to mathe‐matics.

In his university, he was reputed to be socially withdrawn, preferring his own company. He suffered from schizophrenia, leading to persistent delusions that lead to his separation from his wife, Alicia. However, he was able to mostly overcome these by reason, concluding logically that they were delusions, and thus he dis‐regarded them.

Later, he theorised that what is usu‐ally called insanity, deined by him as socially irregular thoughts, was similar to the economic interpreta‐tion of a strike, and also that diversi‐ty in ways of thinking are essential for progress, and so mental health problems are a necessary ill.

He also believed that anti-psychotic medication was overused, and that its side-effects were oten disregard‐ed as those suffering them are men‐tally ill, so side-effects would be hard to distinguish from symptoms of the original mental illness being treated.

Before Nash's developments, the

mathematical study of games was mostly restricted to zero-sum games, where one player's loss is the gain of another. Poker, or other gambling games, are an example of these, as players win money from each other, but the total amount of money does not change. While this analysis worked for most games, it does not work for most real life situ‐

ations.

Game theory is the mathematical analysis of games that are not zero-sum (one player's loss is not always another's gain). he crucial concept is that of the Nash equilibrium, a state in which it is to no one's ad‐vantage to change how they play.

An everyday example of this is which side of the road to drive on. he best strategy is to drive on the same side as the majority, thus min‐

imising the risk of collisions. In this, there are three Nash equilibria. Two of them are all on the let and all on the right. hese are both stable, as even if one person starts driving on the wrong side, it is still sensible to drive on the correct side, avoiding crashes with everyone else.

he third is to choose a side ran‐domly. If everyone does this, then it does not matter what side one drives on, as one will crash into half of the cars they meet, on average. One can follow any strategy, e.g. driving on the right. However, this is unstable, as if one person adopts such a strate‐gy, it becomes marginally safer for any other individual to emulate them. he result is that it changes to an equilibrium where everyone drives on the same side, one of the earlier mentioned stable equilibria.

he main practical application of this type of analysis has been in eco‐nomics and inance, modelling the economy as a game involving every‐one, trying to maximise their wealth. Such analysis has lead, indi‐rectly, to such innovations as the Black-Scholes formula for the valua‐tion of options.

For the development of game theory, he was awarded in 1994 the Nobel Prize in Economics. He also made contributions in differential geometry, proving that every Rie‐mannian manifold can be embedded in some Euclidean space without af‐fecting path lengths, and in 2015 re‐ceived the Abel Prize for his work on partial differential equations, along with Louis Nirenberg.

he life and work of John Nash