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Wait what?! There are people who can access the internet... AND CHOOSE NOT TO?!

Hi, Over 30 young people. 3 large charities. 1 problem. Inequality, or perhaps more specifically technology and inequality. A problem that affects all of us be it because we’re young or old, male or female, gay or straight, we all face it- The question is what do we do about it? So our story begins in the Crystal, London-  where young people from around the UK have convened to combat inequality in technology . Now, the thing is with a subject like inequality, is that it can mean very different things to different people. To some it is the racist views that have been ingrained into our very society, to others it is the unequal accessibility of technology for different groups of people, particularly in our schools or perhaps for mathematicians such as myself, these signs ‘ < > ’ may come to mind. But no matter what viewpoint you held, we all agreed that this was an issue. I must confess as someone who is not particularly well traveled, that to hear about others’ experi

And I'm back!!!

Hi! When you're in a room with 70 other science enthusiasts, you realise a few things. 1. We are all socially awkward human beings, that resort to hangman as a form of introduction. 2. Plot twist! Actually we're not and you find out that we aren't shy, quiet and painfully awkward, as you once thought but instead, we are the loudest, weirdest, most charismatic group of people that you will ever meet- who also happen to be able to put more than 2 and 2 together. As well as the interesting experience of meeting and having some very funny, awkward, fun and embarrassing moments with these people, we also got to have some fun with some pretty cool kit, following the safety lecture from pretty much every person aged over 18 that we encountered, some being more chirpy than others. "Where is this wonderful place?", I hear you ask. Well, it's only an Imperial College London summer school! What else could it be? honestly, come on. So after the excruciating experien

Happy Pi day!

Hi! As it is Pi day, as a lover of all things maths, I thought it would only be appropriate if I wrote a little something for this rather special irrational day! See now being half Greek, for a long time Pi was just another letter than I had to know to say pretty much anything in Greek and then I turned 13. I walked into my Maths classroom and there it was, rather out of place on the interactive whiteboard and being the little miss 'genius' that I thought it was, put my hand up and shouted "that's Pi!" (Pronouncing it Pee) and well I got a fair few puzzled looks followed by a good minute's worth of laughter. Moral of the story- learn how to pronounce things in English before you, like me end up shouting stupid things in class. See, like those surds that I know many of you despise, Pi is also an irrational number so I just wanted to thank π for existing as it has saved my hands from having to write out 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105

So... What's so great about maths?

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Hi! My name is Vanessa and I love maths. In fact I would go one step further to say that I adore it, and sometimes it can be very difficult to explain why to people, as no one seems to get it. I love it with a passion to the point where words can't even explain why I love it so much- but numbers can. So, let's say we start with a very grizzly looking proof: i.e: Fermat's last theorem, for example. Now think about this, Andrew Wiles sat there for 7 years of his life trying to make sense of and to eventually solve this theorem- 7 years! Now, the part in all this that I love is this- that moment when that awful looking proof falls into place; that moment where everything begins to make sense; that moment when all that time you spent sitting down, staring at a piece of paper with an array of numbers and letters scattered on it becomes worth it- that beautiful moment right there is what I love about maths. But it isn't just on the piece of paper, its all around us-

Forget the Big Bang Theory, Try the Big Bang fair!

Hi! 4 days. 75, 000 people. 1 building. And a truck load of Science. What is this wonderful place, I hear you think. Well let me quench your curiosity. 2 years ago I went to the National Science and Engineering Competition at the Big Bang fair (I will be referring to it as the Big Bang for short). Before having the time of my life there were many things that I needed to do first. First: Actually have a project, and to do that I, along with my team of 5 other people designed a roof top garden to look like what most of your bedrooms would look like and certainly similar to mine. A whole bunch of experiments, concrete making and a few arguments later.. We were off to the Regional finals of the Big Bang fair at King's way college in Westminster and we didn't get off to the best of starts. We were around 45 minutes late (Hey! Don't judge, have you tried driving through Central London before? If you haven't? DON'T) and then to get worse we find out that we are to

My Adventures at Imperial

Hi! As you can probably tell  by the name of this blog, I'm pretty big into STEM. But I wasn't always like that, believe it or not I used to hate maths and science with a passion, and a large part of the reason why was because it was soooooo BORING!!! But that changed at some point because I got invited to do a whole bunch of cool things. Recently I was lucky enough to get accepted to the Year 10 Insights Summer school at Imperial College London and to be perfectly honest I didn't know what to expect. We all walked in one by one, carefully selecting our seat, trying to sit as far away from the next human being as possible. A room full of 42 semi-socially awkward young people, who didn't know each other... Yep, just as awkward as it sounds. But any who, they got us all to introduce ourselves with a series of painstaking ice breakers, They were cheesy but extremely effective because by the end of it we were speaking as if we'd known each other our whole lives.

Hello my name is...

Hi! My name is Vanessa and I love science. I have a crazy fascination with astronomy and more generally how things work. Ever since I was in year 5, I have always been the one who wanted to know that little bit more or the one who would ask one more question than I probably should and I started to realise that very few others were like that. So I'm writing to all you girls who have that 'weird' interest Pythagoras or who are closet experts in Kinetic theory, To the girls who deal with numbers the way other girls walk in 6 inch stiletto heels (Shout out to the girls who can do both!). Being a girl in today's society is so hard because so much is expected of us. We are expected to look like what society deems beautiful and to think in the way that girls are expected to think because we are supposed to leave all the real thinking to the men... right? WRONG! Some of the most powerful minds in human history have been from women and likewise some of the most amazing dis