Head's Newsletter 11 February 2022

TIFFINOMICS ESSAY COMPETTION RESULTS

ASTRONOMY SOCIETY

The Tiffin Astronomy Society hosted an online lecture from Dr Jeoffrey Briggs, ex Tiffinian with a long - time career in physics. Dr Briggs attended Tiffin School between 1951 and 1958. After Tiffin he was an undergraduate at Durham University in the Physics Department, obtaining his BSc in 1962 and 4 years later a PhD in High Energy Physics. His brilliant career in physics included working at Caltech ’ s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at NASA as Director of the Solar System Exploration Program. The talk, “ The Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Life ”, had Mars as its centre, detailing the NASA and the China Space Agency robotic landed missions ongoing on the red planet. Dr Briggs discussed the future of sample return in the coming years, including issues with Planetary Protection needing coordination between the Agencies. Dr Briggs kindly donated to the school his books “ Journey into deep space: The inner solar system ” and “ Journey into deep space: Outer solar system & beyond ”, outlining humanity ’ s latest efforts in the exploration of space. The Tiffin Astronomy Society and the many students present at the lecture are immensely grateful to Dr Briggs for this fantastic opportunity.

Tiffinomics ran two separate law and philosophy essay competitions this term. The questions were based around the theme of diversity with the Law question being ‘ Should positive discrimination be legalised as a way to increase diversity within the judiciary? ’ and our Philosophy choices being ‘ should Infinitely wise and benevolent rulers have infinite power? ’ OR ‘ Was Ujamaa philosophy a beneficial ideology to Tanzania? ’. The competition was tough and the winners hard to pick. However, after some consideration we decided that Harish Narasimhan won the Philosophy competition and Farah Shaheen, the Law competition. Both won £10 Waterstones gift vouchers. Click here to read the winning submissions . If you are interested in the political sciences do head over to explore the Tiffinomics website.