HPS in 20: Essay competition winners

The Centre for History and Philosophy of Science announces the names of the A-level students who submitted prize-winning essays to their HPS in 20 Objects competition

HPS in 20: The competition!

In November 2020 we announced an essay competition, in which year 12 and 13 A-Level students were invited to send us 800-word essays telling us which of our 20 objects is the most important, and why.

We received a wonderful array of impressively scholarly essays on different topics, and we are delighted to announce our winners!

In first place, Aarushi Malik, from King Edward VI School in Birmingham, sent us a stylishly written case for the Stethoscope. She showed an excellent grasp of the complex materials of the lecture while going beyond them to draw an optimistic and timely lesson about the progress of science and medicine. Aarushi nets £100.

Sara Hamdani, from Xaverian College in Manchester, and Ruby Cline, from Chiswick School in West London, are our two prize-winning runners-up, and will be awarded £50 each. Sara wrote an imaginative, well researched, and wonderfully well-written essay on how, from Plato to Freud, the horse-and-rider figurine has symbolized human attempts to use reason to understand the often irrational human mind. Ruby submitted a very thoughtful and well researched essay on the Biblical herbarium as a clue to major themes in the sociology of religion and of popular science in Victorian Britain.

You can read Aarushi, Sara and Ruby’s prize-winning essays over at the centre blog.

Congratulations to all our winners, and many thanks to everyone who submitted an essay. We were delighted by the level of enthusiasm on display, and feel confident that HPS has a very rosy future and will be in good hands.