The AbacusEdition #9

Credit: Finnbar and Varun

by HJ

Ater the student council reports that the only way KCLMS will allow the purchase of a microwave is by showing staff that it will be put to good use and not abused unlike the fridge. With rotten food dated months back, a mayonnaise jar with no lid, and unknown juices running down the sides of the fridge - a mi‐crowave was a deinite no-no.

By some miracle the fridge was as good as new the next day, someone had cleaned out all the food and made sure that anything that had gone off was thrown away, washed down the shelves and removed any‐thing that was stuck to the fridge. A gruelling job that no one wanted to do. Marjoline Quila was a saviour. Spurred on by the promise of a mi‐crowave or sheer boredom and pro‐crastination, no one will ever know what drove Marjoline to do what the rest of the student body had been avoiding.

It's safe to say that this random act of kindness was the inal nail to seal the purchase of a microwave. For that we will always be in debt to the girl who cleaned the fridge and henceforth she shall be known as the fridge-keeper with the theme tune of "Ice Ice Baby" or something else

by Jack Darrant

Every day at KCLMS is a voyage of discovery, but recently even more so. On the same day as discovering that paper cones used for coursework make trendy fashion accessories; and that gatherings of Physics teach‐ers in your school entail a helping of letover but agreeable M&S sand‐wiches; students discovered the biggest life hack yet. If you hold your King's ID card to the corner of your tablet, it makes a futuristic

bleeping sound.

here are two theories about this fascinating phenomenon. One is that the cards use the same Near Field Communication system as the tablets use for ile sharing. However, Russell Brand told the Abacus that "that's what hey want you to think." He explained "Microsot put the bleeps there to distract us from the drudgery of our unwashed, plebean lives. I blame hem."

In Cinemas 30th February

hanks, Marjoline!

Why Is Your Tablet Making Weird

Bleeping Noises?

2 he Abacus

by Amy Sellers

Kennington falls within the London Borough of Lambeth and the Lon‐don Borough of Southwark. It is one oldest inhabited areas in the UK, dating back to at least 750BC when the irst model of the London Bridge was created here. It also appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Chenintune (the Old English spelling of Kennington); meaning 'Place of the King'.

Although on the wrong side of the river, Kennington was oten fre‐quented by royals; this led to the construction of Kennington manor in 1030. his manor is where Harold Godwinson took the Crown; the day ater the death of Edward the Con‐fessor. King Henry III also held his court here in 1231; and, according to Matthew Paris, in 1232, Parlia‐ment was held at Kennington

Manor. he historical building con‐tinues to be owned by the current monarch's elder son (HRH the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall).

he eighteenth century saw consid‐erable development here, especially as a ground of executions. In 1746, Francis Towneley and eight men who had taken part in the Jacobite Rising were hung, drawn and quar‐tered at Kennington Common. A fraudster from Camberwell, named Badger, was the last person to be hanged at Kennington Common, in 1799. On 10 May 1768, at the site of the Imperial War Museum today, the Massacre of St George's Fields took place- a riot was initiated ater a radical spoke out against George the 3rd; soldiers ired into the crowd, killing seven people.

In the 18th century terraced housing was built; and Kennington became a place for the workers. It slid into de‐cline and became a place: 'for the poor'. Many attempts were made at gentriication but none were suc‐cessful until 1915 when the Duchy of Cornwall set about an ambitious project to redevelop the land. Courtenay Square, Courtenay Street, Cardigan Street, Denny Street and Denny Crescent were constructed along with Lambeth Hospital, which was created from a former work‐house. Under the control of the Lon‐don County Council, Lambeth Hos‐pital had a capacity of 1,250 patients in 1939 and was one of the largest hospitals in London.

Lambeth Council designated much of Kennington a Conservation Area in 1968 and placed emphasis on conserving and protecting Kenning‐ton's architectural heritage. Ken‐nington is considered a tourist at‐traction, its major landmarks in‐cluding: Kennington Park, Kenning‐ton Oval (a cricket ground), the Im‐

perial War Museum, and Stane Street.

Notable people associated with Ken‐nington include: John Newlands (who put together the irst periodic table); E. Nesbit (author of 'he Rail‐way Children'); Vincent van Gogh; and Charlie Chaplin.

also as itting. Let's hope the mi‐crowave will have a different and better fate.

On another note, the Student Coun‐cil will be enforcing rules on the fridge, anything placed in the fridge that is not taken home by the week‐end will be thrown away. Anything with no labels that say otherwise will be thrown out. If something is past its best before date, it will be thrown away. No leakages, no half-opened food, no raw food. Also, please re‐spect other people's food.

1. If you have a herd of goats, a pride of lions and a parliament of owls, what do you call a group of Physics teachers?

2. Isn't linear programming something to do with BBC Two?

3. How does Mr Robson give his pigs such excellent verbal and mathematical reasoning skills?

4. If you can direct forces and you can resolve forces, is it possible to dissolve them?

5. Take me to church?6. We're told that you can get an

idea of your ideal job by going into a bookshop and seeing which section you 'gravitate'' towards. If you ind you hover around crime iction, should you become a serial killer?

7. Is the Bank of England using the vending machine to re‐move all coins from circula‐tion except 5p peices?

8. Is the Illuminati using the vending machine to enact its annoyingly-tiny-coin based plot?

9. Why has the central heating become so, well, characterful of late?

10. Is Zero a natural number?

Kennington's Secret

History

10 hings We Want To

Know

3he Abacus

by Jack Darrant

KCLMS' Astronomy Club is hosting a photography competition in which students are invited to submit their photographs of the night sky to be voted on by the Club. he winning photograph will be published in the Abacus. Competition guidelines have been emailed to all students and the competition deadline is the Monday ater half-term.

Looking for inspiration? he Club's next meeting (this Monday) will be discussing stellar bodies of interests such as constellations which en‐trants may wish to photograph. hey may also wish to photograph the blu-tack telescopes they are using, just for the LOLZ.

Inspirational Quote no.9

by Varun

War is approaching! Upon the ar‐rival of the mysterious Illuminati so‐ciety, Kings Maths School is in tur‐moil. Evil has spread to all the ver‐tices and the Kings' whiteboard marker supplies have been captured by the Empire which are now being used to broadcast their requirement for talented mathematicians.

Several failed ambushes have been attempted by the Dark Side and all have been in vain. his has only al‐lowed the Kings' Republic to re‐group within the territories that they have access to, but it is only a matter of time before even these are over‐thrown.

However, there are rumours of pigs being bred in the distant system of Oinkstooine to be recruited. Some believe that a battalion of Purple and Orange Fire Breathing Pigforce‐ments are coming to our aid via failed mechanics questions.he up‐coming Pig War can transform the fate of the mathematics curriculum for years to come…

he key election issue of securing a MICROWAVE was resolved ater the school agreed to Student Coun‐cil requests for the installation of one in the cafeteria. As the cold months of winter crept in, it emerged that a warm cup of chocomilk was not enough to stu‐dents' diva-ish demands for hot lunches. he microwave is due to be delivered sometime this week, by which time KCLMS will boast more sophisticated food prep. facilities than a typical McDonalds.

VALENTINE'S DAY- at Secretary Hao-Jing's suggestion, a card deliv‐ery service will be run. Romantics can leave their cards in the box in the kitchen area at any time until hursday evening, for delivery on Friday.

SCHOOL IDENTITY- the Council is currently chasing popular ideas like school-branded hoodies and a community-designed logo. Arrange‐ments are also being made for a stu‐dent NOTICEBOARD and LGBT MONTH.

he War of he

Whiteboard Markers

A Stellar Competition

hink Micro: What Your

Council Has Been Up To

Listen now at soundcloud.com

/pod-2-cast

Introducing the

4 he Abacus

You barely know you're using it when it works well. Unfortunately, it is unpredictable and serves some ar‐eas better than others. It is plagued sudden and inexplicable break‐downs. Yes, we can only be talking about London transp... no, the KCLMS central heating system. his key part of the school's infrastruc‐ture has worked well- too well, even- until last month Since that time, it has become a regular event for the heating to fail and the bitter cold to rush in. Students' behaviour has no‐ticeably changed: many try not to stray far from their coat, lest they have a need to shiver through morn‐ing lessons in it. he radiator has be‐come the focal point of every room. People bring ice cream into school, knowing that it will stay cool in the Arctic-style classroom climate.

So what is the cause of this hopeless‐ly exaggerated picture of tragedy? Official explanation has not been forthcoming but the Abacus has placed its inest analysts, idle specu‐lators and coffee-addicted trolls on the case and can reveal the true cause of the problem.

Due to the perpetual lack of funds in the Coalition-era education system, KCLMS outsourced its central heat‐ing to Transport for London (TfL) who promised to provide a cheaper service for more money. In a £300,000j deal, TfL placed its own Tube and Bus managers in charge of the boiler, seeking to replicate its usual stunning efficiency. In January, Tl unveiled its 'Heating Modernisa‐

tion Plan' in which it would scrap all radiators and replace them with iPads. he radiators responded with a series of strikes, forming a ceramic picket line around the Secret Spiral Staircase in the Annexe. Manage‐ment told the Abacus"the radiators are hysterical... how can we justify employing dozens of them at a whopping 5p an hour in today's dig‐ital economy?"

he impasse was resolved when someone pointed out that iPads would make useless heaters anyway. But this was not the end of heating woes from KCLMS. An anonymous source, who insisted on talking to us in a multi-storey car park and going by the alias "Deep Float", revealed that, as soon as London Overground staff were seconded to help out, the boiler exploded due to "the wrong type of leaf falling on to the plumb‐ing". However, TfL have assured stu‐dents that, in future, charcoal re‐placement services will be avilable.

he crisis-weary nation of Kudos surprised the world with a series of democratic reforms aimed at placat‐ing the restless Kudossser public. he empire, still a dependency of King's College London, has held free elections to a new, consultative as‐sembly, the Kudos Plebean Forum. Unlike Parliament, it lacks the pow‐er to create laws, debate what it chooses or scrutinise the govern‐ment. Nevertheless, the Plebean Fo‐

rum does have a function: sitting around and talking about things in‐effectually wile the government does whatever it pleases. So not that dif‐ferent from Parliament ater all, then.

Despite the total irrelevance of the elections, the EU and the IMF have expressed concern that SYRIZA and the Kudos Liberation Front, both pro-Mathematics parties, have won a 42 and 2/3 out of 57 and 1/2 seats. As a condition of the €5 quitillion bailout it gave to Kudos in 2011, the government has introduced savage austerity and anti-Maths measures. Kudosser children had their calculus lessons halved, while the state pen‐sion was reduced from 3 live goats to 1 dead goat per year.

he pro-austerity Alliance Against Extravagant Mathematics (AAEM), who promised to "slash the amount of maths in Kudosser daily life.... to pre-abacus levels", was roundly de‐feated. It slumped to ith place be‐hind the fascist Happy Sunshine Rainbow Folk party (now the main Opposition party) and the hapless Liberal Democrats. he only other movement represented is the Pea Shellers' Association, a single-issue group committed to research into renewable peas.

Kudos authorities will therefore be reluctant to continue its transition to democracy now that they see that Kudossers don't vote the way they are supposed to. his explains why the Prime Minister asked the Illumi‐nati to continue enforcing the exile of pro-democracy leader Heros Herosinos. Heros is understood to be eager to lead an uprising in the nation, but is currently occupied having a debate on ethics with Rus‐sell Brand.

Kudos Holds First

Elections in 31 Years

TFL Takes Over School

Heating

5he Abacus

by CJM

Encryption is, as we probably know, the practice of making a message in‐comprehensible to all people who do not know a particular piece of secret information. For millenia, schemes have existed where the knowledge required to encrypt a message is the same as that to decrypt it. A simple example of this is the Caesar cipher, shiting all letters around the alpha‐bet by a ixed amount, where this amount is the secret knowledge or key. hese are known as symmetric ciphers.

However, in the last few decades, systems have been invented, known as asymmetric ciphers, where a per‐

son able to encrypt messages is un‐able to decrypt them, as a different key is needed for encryption as that for decryption. A mathematical method produces both, the user keeps secret the decryption key, and publishes that for encryption so that anyone can send them secret mes‐sages which can be read by no one who doesn't know the decryption key.

he most popular of such schemes are based on RSA, a system using a theorem of Euler's about modular exponentiation. he mathematics is quite complicated, too much so for me to explain in this article, espe‐cially as I would have to learn it my‐self. Curious readers are advised to consult the Wikipedia article on RSA encryption, and that on modu‐lar exponentiation.

he practical impact of this is that people can communicate digitally in secret, a very useful development for anyone who would like to tell Ama‐zon their card details but not all the world's hackers and fraudsters!

Presumably, most people have heard of the mass surveillance reve‐lations of Edward Snowden, and all that has come out aterwards.

his surveillance took place largely by legally mandating companies providing communication services to disclose the content and metadata of messages to the security services. Even if the connection to the mes‐saging service is encrypted, the mes‐sages on this model (such as Face‐book messages) would be decrypted on the servers of the provider, where they could be accessed by spies.

Recently in the news was the pro‐posal by David Cameron to prohibit the use of encrypted messaging ap‐plications in the United Kingdom,

by Varun

Have you ever read an article by someone, say, NOT from the Abacus, and you found it to be the most painful experience ever? Here, we have a article on how NOT to write in the lazy manner that feels like it's been written at 3:37 in the morning without the help of coffee.

- Some have the ability to just ram‐

ble on and on without getting to any speciic point and with every word it just seems to get more repetitive and less meaningful and the grammar‐less sentence takes up several lines and this just becomes a complete waste of ink and space and time and horizontal eye movement like it is right now.

- Of every j writers, 42 may end up using having 50.4% of their word count being implausible statistics that only 1/1567 of the population can comprehend, and I am certain that one out of ∞ disagree with me on this.

- Study shows that people that tend to use the phrase 'study shows' as their default sentence starter in or‐der to prove their point (assuming there is any) tend to be the ones that ultimately disprove it because they

fail to provide speciic details on their topic.

here are two kinds of people in this world. Ones that go let, and ones that go write (… groan…). And there are also the kind that make in‐excusable puns as feeble attempts to draw out a LOL or two from the poor, poor readers. If you are one of those punners, save it for the Sun.

More from this series:

he Book on How to Write a Book without your Readers hinking You're Doing it to pay off a Rent

he Movie on to Make a Movie without your Viewers hinking You're Doing for the Red Carpet

he Article on How to Write an Article without

Your Readers hinking You’re Doing It for the

Lolz

Number heory, Spies,

and Tories

6 he Abacus

Marcus stares into the distance, looking for what?

Alice shows off a cutting-edge telescope

for the prevention of terrorism. he reason given was that the ability to communicate in a manner secure from the monitoring revealed by

Snowden was useful to terrorists, and so prohibiting these services was in the interests of national secu‐rity.

However, the services prohibited by the proposed would only be those like WhatsApp (in its Android ver‐sion) which are messaging apps whose apps encrypt messages by de‐fault without any interaction by the user.

What the Prime Minister would like to happen is that these companies be legally mandated to design their apps or websites so that the compa‐ny, and so the law enforcement au‐thorities and 'security' services, could access the content of the mes‐sages that are sent. his is done as described above with secure links between the client and a central server, oten using HTTPS.

A technically savvy malefactor, however, would be quite capable of i n s t a l l i n g s otw a r e s u c h a s OpenPGP, which is not based around any messaging service, but just converts between encrypted and decrypted messages. his is a lot harder to prohibit as unlike What‐sApp, there are no message-relaying servers to take down, only code run‐ning on a user's machine. he locally encrypted messages can then be sent over whatever insecure medium of communication the user desires, and remain secure.

herefore, the proposed law would require weakening security for ev‐eryday users, who run the risk of mass data leaks if the company servers are hacked, while not hin‐dering terrorists and other criminals who will go to the extra effort of in‐stalling separate cryptographic sot‐ware, such as OpenPGP. I personally think that everyday users should use suc hsotware, so that they are better protected from leaks and surveil‐lance. Also, it might upset the Tories.'We can make ANYTHING with

blu-tack.'

Photos credit: Chanel

The Photobook: Space Masterclass

7he Abacus

MCO:

1. My wildebeest, Alphonso, as‐sures me that the inverse of a 3 x 3 matrix can be found by c utt ing the matr ix into squares, placing the squares into a blender, using the result as confetti for a sun-worship‐ping dance. My woodlice, Ivy-Violet and Abigail-Jean-Paw‐

paw, informed me that this was a 'pyramid of piffle'. hey say the inverse of a 3 x 3 ma‐trix can be found by multiply‐ing all of the possible combi‐nations of any number of dig‐its in the matrix together and picking a result at random. Who should I believe? Explain the error that the other ani‐mals have made in their A-Level Maths work.

MSD

1. I have too much money and I want to spend as much of it as possible. I go to Starbucks. I can drink up to 2g of caffiene without having a heart attack- which I would like to avoid lest it slow down my coffee drink‐ing. A Somewhat Tall Preten‐ticinno costs £9.29 and con‐tains 750 mg of caffiene. A Gi‐ant Skimmed Smugesso costs £23 but contains 350 mg. Tall drinks take 40 minutes to drink, but Giants take 85 min‐utes. I have 10 hours. How much can I spend, and how?

2. Mr Selbmahsinmo buys a drink from the vending ma‐chine at 25:60 every day of term. On any given day, the

chance that it will swallow his money and give him sweet nothing is 0.6. What is the probability that, on a regular half term of 30 days, he will be let drinkless one-third of the time?

MME

1. A pan-dimensional lying chameleon is cruising through the cosmos at a velocity of (7i + 92j - 6k + 2/3 l + 16 m). It collides with a static caravan and bounces off, whizzing off into hyperspace with a coeffi‐

cient of restitution of US$5. Calculate its new speed, given that it has now entered the Eu‐clidean plane at an angle of 452 degrees farenheight.

Physics

1. To understand how telecom‐

munications truly works, we will run a practical in which you and a partner send a mes‐sage across the room with nothing more than the most basic materials imaginable. Traditionally, this experiment is done using just a piece of string, but using that is easy, GCSE stuff. No, you will do this with nothing more than two phones and a BT landline.

2. Write a risk assessment for your Quality of Measurement coursework, measuring the length of a piece of string. En‐sure you consider the follow‐

ing risk: ire, paper cuts, falling rocks, hypothermia, death from boredom and a psychotic episode induced by consider‐ing trivial nonexistent risks.

Computing

Yes, Finnbar and Varun are also responsible for this

Buy it on VHS today!

The Revision Guide

8 he Abacus

By HJ

Ater half a term of waiting, the B's were inally able to go to the nation‐al physics lab (NPL). he journey to Teddington took a little more than an hour and the view outside the train was no doubt horrible. Despite that and the brief moment where we went the wrong way, the town itself wasn't too bad. he National Physics Lab lived up to our very high expec‐tations. he three buildings were built in the 2000s, the two side buildings had the majority of labs and the middle was where the write ups were done. In fact, if you walk along the side of the middle building, it was the exact length of the titanic! he architecture of the buildings were beautiful despite be‐ing a little over 15 years old.

During the trip, we learnt how sound travels differently in different temperatures and there was a little experiment called the resonator. We also learnt that it was important for

physicists to use the correct mea‐surements or their experiments will become redundant and the results unusable.

We split up into smaller groups and we went into separate rooms which were specially built for speciic pur‐poses. he irst of which was a room that had no insulation, glass panes were placed strategically around the room to bounce sound around. he next room was the complete oppo‐site, illed with triangular prisms, and other insulators, sound did not bounce, instead the waves travelled more directly and sound was quieter. For many, this was a very bad room to be in. he last room re-created a scene that subjects would feel more at home. Furnishings were placed to imitate how the human ear would hear sound. his was by far the comiest of rooms!

Revolving doors and atom clocks that only worked some of the time - NPL deinitely had a certain style.

Does this room put you at ease? Photo credit: HJ

1. Using a .htm ile in Notepad, write a webpage that eats itself.

2. Use Python to implement Quantum Bogosort. hat is, write a program that will utilise multiverse theory to sort any list by randomising it and, if the list remains unsort‐ed, destroying the universe, leaving only paralell universes in which the list is sorted in‐tact.

EPQ

1. Write a CV and covering letter to send to the corporate i‐nance departments of lourish‐ing British retaillers (e.g. Wo o l w or t h s , P h on e s 4 U, Blockbuster and Comet). Re‐member that it should be in Comic Sans, size 48 pink let‐ters, printed on the back of a copy of Metro and it should contain as much slang, inap‐propriate innuendo and self-depre c at ion as you c an manage.

STEP

1. We were going to put a 600-character equation and an eleborate diagram here to scare you, but we really can't be bothered this year. Pretend you've seen it and you've react‐ed apppropriately: your eyes are watering and your throat is tight and dry. You are panick‐ing, so you pick the best sounding answer.

a) 2015 b) X is less than 7 but greater than 12. c) Agatha, Jon and then Louis d) Gizza mark. I really want to go to Oxbrige/Tower Ham‐

lets University e) 12

he Curiosities of the National Physical Laboratory