A Brief Overview of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion

University student Matthew “Matt” Kafker studies a variety of topics, including computer science, math, and literature. However, Matt Kafker is perhaps most interested in natural sciences and is majoring in physics.

In the physics of motion, Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws are:

- First: Objects in motion will stay in motion unless an external force is applied to them. Similarly, objects at rest will continue resting without the addition of an external force.

- Second: An object’s acceleration and force are directly related. For example, when more force is applied to an object, that object will move at a faster rate. At the same time, the mass of an object is inversely related to an object’s force and acceleration.

- Third: All forces exist in pairs that are equal and opposite to one another. An example of this law is seen when a person steps off a boat. The person moving toward the shore is exerting force on the boat. In response to this action, the boat moves away from the shore with the same amount of force that was applied to it.

An Ancient Mesopotamian Underworld Myth

University student Matthew “Matt” Kafker has a passion for physics, mathematics, and statistics. In his free time, Matt Kafker enjoys attending lectures on mythology and ancient cultures and maintains a particular interest in Egyptian, Greek, and Mesopotamian belief systems. 

In addition to a polytheistic religion with many subsets of belief, Mesopotamian cosmology included mythological figures such as Anu, the god of the sky, and Enki, the earth god also responsible for crafts, inventions, and the canals that irrigated the fertile crescent. 

Enlil, the god of the wind, is at the center of one of the ancient civilization’s foundational myths. In the myth, Enlil sleeps with Ninlil, the goddess of grain, after coming upon her bathing in a canal. This union brings forth Su-en (Sin), the moon god, and also results in Enlil’s banishment to the netherworld. 

Ninlil follows Enlil as he travels beneath the earth, bearing him three more sons who grow up to become underworld deities. With these children able to stand in their father’s stead, Enlil and Ninlil are able to return to the world of the living, where they bring abundant harvests and reliable seasons to the people of Mesopotamia.

Belize as a Travel Destination

During his junior and senior years at Middlesex School, Matthew (Matt) Kafker earned several academic awards and was a National AP Scholar and a National Merit Commended student. Matt Kafker also participated in several international service learning opportunities in France and Costa Rica. This sparked his love of travel, which has taken him to Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, and Belize. 

Belize is a country south of Mexico and west of the Caribbean Sea. Tourism to Belize has grown tremendously over the past 15 years. 

However, due to the high cost of imports, Belize is considerably more expensive than its Central American neighbors. Some of the country’s main attractions include its natural beauty, long coastline, and quaint villages. 

Because of a rise in American visitors and the popularity of Belize City as a cruise stop, many American air carriers now offer direct flights to Belize. English is widely spoken in the country, and travelers have many choices in accommodations, including secluded resorts with views of the rain forest or the beach.

Sharing Ideas through TED Talks

Physics major Matthew (Matt) Kafker possesses diverse academic interests, including astrophysics, mythology, and ancient Greek history. Matt Kafker often listens to informative and educational podcasts and lectures, including the popular TED Talks. 

TED Conferences began more than 30 years ago to introduce innovations in technology, entertainment, and design (“TED”) to a wider audience. Today, TED Talks cover diverse topics, including health, business, education, science, and economics. TED Talks have been streamed over a billion times by listeners all over the world. 

Outside of official TED Conferences held annually, thousands of organizations, colleges, and research institutions organize their own speakers under the brand TEDx. These local conferences must adhere to a set of rules to maintain a TED license.

For example, local organizers must ensure that speakers represent different industries and that the conference does not have any promotional undertones. Also, since TEDx is intended to provide a platform for new ideas and perspectives, professional motivational speakers and well-known life coaches are generally not permitted to participate.

Mitch Hedberg’s Short Life and Career

The physics major, Matthew “Matt” Kafker, takes physics, math, computer science, and literature courses as a university student. In his free time, he enjoys listening to stand-up comedy. Matt Kafker is particularly fond of Mitch Hedberg among other comedians.

Known for his unique humor and comedy style, Mitch Hedberg was born in Minnesota in 1968. He completed his formal education at Saint Paul’s Harding High School and subsequently moved to Florida due to the state’s warmer weather. While there, he enhanced his comedic skills before moving again to reach new audiences. After his move to Seattle, he began to tour in the Pacific Northwest.

Although Hedberg performed in numerous cities, including Los Angeles, and appeared on several cable television shows, such as “Comedy Product” on Comedy Central and “Comikaze” on MTV, he did not experience a major breakthrough until 1996. In that year, he performed at the Just for Laughs Montreal International Comedy Festival and earned a spot on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”

The following year, he won the Seattle Comedy Competition’s grand prize and subsequently appeared on “That ’70s Show.” His reputation continued to bring him success. He debuted in the feature film “Los Enchiladas!” in 1999. Then he appeared on several addition television shows between 2000 and 2004 and recorded comedy CDs, the last of which was released in 2008 following his death in 2005.

When to Visit Barbados

Physics major Matthew (Matt) Kafker is a dedicated university student who earned several academic awards as a high school student at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. Passionate about travel, Matt Kafker has visited several other countries, including the island country of Barbados.

Generally, the climate in Barbados is warm, with daytime highs between 75 and 85 degrees. However, the area does experience wet and dry seasons that impact the things tourists can enjoy on their vacations. 

Typically, the best time to visit Barbados is between July and November. While there is rain during these months, prices are much lower, and visitors can enjoy several key events, including the Reef Bowl and the Crop Over Festival.

When winter starts, prices on the island increase. December through April, Barbados sees the largest number of tourists. Hurricane season is over in these months, so the improved weather draws even more people.

In May and June, temperatures are comfortable, but crowds begin decreasing. Hurricane season begins, which results in lower hotel and air travel prices and smaller crowds.

James Gleick’s Fascinating Look at Our Obsession with Time Travel

An honors graduate of Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, Matthew (“Matt”) Kafker currently pursues university studies in mathematics, physics, and literature. To further his understanding of science, Matt Kafker reads a number of different authors who focus on subjects like physics, including James Gleick. Known for his books Chaos and The Information, James Gleick published Time Travel: A History in 2016. 

Named one of the best books of the year by both The Boston Globe and The Atlantic, Time Travel looks at the concept of moving through time through the lens of both popular culture and science. From its origins in literature when the very idea seemed ludicrous to modern debates among physicists and technologists, Gleick looks at how the public perception of time travel has evolved and the boundary between fiction and reality has shifted.

What makes Gleick’s narrative about time travel so compelling is the way in which he relates it to the modern age of connectivity and instantaneous experience. He relates the obsession with time travel to the all-consuming present moment in a way that will make people think about the world in new terms.

10 Percent Happier Raises Millions Toward Release of Meditation App

Matthew (Matt) Kafker graduated from Middlesex School in Massachusetts and is currently working toward a bachelor’s degree. One of his passions outside of class is mindfulness meditation, an interest that he explores through the podcast 10% Happier. This podcast is the outgrowth of Dan Harris’ book of the same name. Recently, Dan Harris has helped in the development of a 10% Happier meditation app that has already raised about $5 million in funding.

The 10% Happier app is tailored for people who do not buy into the idea of meditation. In many ways, the app is aimed at people like Harris, who was a skeptic until he experienced a panic attack while on air as an anchorman. He decided he needed to try something new and he documents his journey in the 10% Happier book.

Originally, the app went by the name Change Collective and sought Harris out to design a single course for meditators. Because his course was so different from the others developed, the app brought him on board as a co-founder and rebranded itself.

Candide and the Lisbon Earthquake

A graduate of the Middlesex School in Massachusetts, Matthew “Matt” Kafker studies literature, linguistics, physics, and other subjects as a university student. An avid reader during his free time, Matt Kafker is currently reading Voltaire’s Candide, among other works.

Widely considered to be one of the most important writers of the Enlightenment period in Europe, Voltaire was born in the late 17th century to a prominent family in Paris. A gifted student, he soon began to develop a reputation for his writing skill and his iconoclastic ideas that challenged the political and religious authorities of the day. Throughout his life, he explored the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment in many essays, stories, and plays, but the short satirical novel Candide has proved to be the most enduring of his works.

The novel traces the adventures of the eponymous character, Candide, as he moves from a place of privileged optimism into the harsh reality of the world, encountering war, disease, and natural disasters along the way. One real-life event that found its way into Candide’s pages was the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The earthquake, which registered 9.0 on the Richter scale, killed more than a third of Lisbon’s population and destroyed much of the city.

The event had a major impact on the philosophers and religious thinkers of the day, many of whom saw the earthquake as an argument against a beneficent God. Voltaire was also greatly impacted by the disaster and used it as an episode in Candide’s journey away from boundless optimism.

Mindfulness Meditation Helps with Depression

A university student and community volunteer, Matthew “Matt” Kafker has participated in two international volunteer missions through the Global Works organization. During his free time, Matt Kafker pursues a healthy lifestyle that includes practicing mindfulness meditation.

A discipline that dates back thousands of years to Eastern religions and spiritual practices, mindfulness meditation involves the practitioner paying attention to the present moment through mantras, conscious breathing exercises, or other methods. The practice has made its way into mainstream Western culture over the past few decades through the efforts of yoga practitioners, religious gurus, and scientists such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Harvard-based researcher and doctor who popularized the connection between mindful meditation and improved health.

In recent years, a growing body of evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation has beneficial effects for insomnia, anxiety, chronic pain, and a host of other medical issues. Additionally, researchers are finding that mindfulness meditation, along with a mindfulness meditation-based treatment called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), can help with depression as well.

For example, recent studies have shown that mindfulness meditation and MBCT can be effective in preventing patients with controlled depression from sliding back into depressive symptoms. Meanwhile, in 2014, a meta-study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at nearly 50 studies on the link between mindfulness and depression and found that mindfulness meditation offers the same level of benefit for individuals with depression as medication does.

MIT Ranked Top University for Physics Majors

As a high school student, Matthew (Matt) Kafker earned the Andrew M. Dawson Physics Prize, an honor bestowed on students who excel in their studies. Currently, Matt Kafker is taking on a well-rounded course load in math, computer science, and literature while working toward an undergraduate degree in physics.

Each year, major research and academic institutions are ranked to determine which universities are the best for a given subject. Physics departments are usually scored based on the academic achievements of their faculty and the career prospects of their graduates. 

In 2018, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge was recognized as the top school for physics in U.S. News and World Report’s education rankings. MIT’s robust research program allows undergraduates to obtain extensive theoretical and practical knowledge in the field. The university awards nearly 600 bachelor and graduate level degrees in physics every year.

While the majority of the top universities for physics majors are located in the US, there are many notable institutions worldwide, such as Oxford University in the UK and the University of Tokyo in Japan.

5 Qualities of a Great Volunteer

Matt Kafker is an active university student interested in physics, math, computer science, and literature. Dedicated to promoting the welfare of others, Matt Kafker has volunteered with organizations including the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter, Open Door Food Pantry, and Greater Boston Food Bank. 

Being an effective volunteer requires a specific set of skills. The following are five strengths that a volunteer should have:

1. Awareness. A helpful volunteer identifies people’s needs and finds ways to meet them by using the knowledge they have gained from their life experience and training.

2. Reliability. Volunteering requires a commitment to completing volunteer activities on a regular schedule.

3. Compassion. Volunteers are empathic to the situations that impact those that they serve.

4. Self-confidence. Being able to receive constructive criticism helps a volunteer learn how to provide better service while developing his or her skills. 

5. Enthusiasm. Having a positive attitude and passion for the work being done is vital to making a successful contribution.

Richard Dawkins Proposes a Solution to the “Reproducibility Crisis"

A university student with a focus on physics, computer science, and math, Matt Kafker is an avid reader who enjoys works of scientific inquiry. One of Matt Kafker’s favorite science writers is Richard Dawkins, who was interviewed by Scientific American in August 2017. 

One topic that Dawkins addressed was the “reproducibility crisis,” which has created serious concerns about the reliability of scientific research, particularly in the medical field. At the root of this is a tendency for the results of studies to be summed up in neat ways that are designed to gain wide dissemination in the media but don’t stand up to attempts at replication by other scientists.

In addition, a “file drawer effect” exists, whereby those papers that do not disprove the null hypothesis, or accepted status quo, do not achieve publication, as they are considered too boring. As Dawkins views it, this can lead to the spread of falsehoods. This is because enough studies on a subject will eventually generate some outliers that “yield statistical significance,” even in cases where the null hypothesis is true. 

One way of resolving the file drawer effect proposed by Dawkins is for scientists to publish on the Internet their intention to undertake experiments beforehand. The results are then shared with the scientific community, regardless of whether the findings are positive or negative.

Two Must-See National Parks in Alaska

After graduating with high honors from Middlesex School and earning awards such as the Sibyl F. Cohane Prize, Matt Kafker began his university education majoring in physics. Alongside keeping up with his studies, Matt Kafker enjoys traveling around the world, internationally and to domestic sites of interest such as Alaska.

As you prepare for an Alaskan adventure, you face an extensive range of choices to view the state’s spectacular natural scenery. Two places in particular to consider visiting are Denali National Park & Preserve and Kenai Fjords National Park.

Denali National Park holds the tallest peak in the United States known as Denali Mountain (also called Mount McKinley). With 6 million acres encompassing everything from river valleys to alpine ranges, the park boasts more than 650 flowering plant species to view during the summer, 169 bird species, and 39 mammal species.

Kenai Fjords National Park offers breathtaking views of glaciers, fjords, and icefields across the Kenai Peninsula. Located south of Anchorage and relatively easy to reach, this park also affords visitors an opportunity to participate in dog sled races.

GitHub Code Review Tools

A university student, Matt Kafker serves as an advocate for the homeless and the hungry by volunteering at the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter. In addition to his community work, Matt Kafker was awarded the Rene N. Bourquin French Prize while a student at Middlesex School, and currently maintains a GitHub page at https://github.com/mmkafker.

A web-based development platform, GitHub enables developers to collaboratively develop code, manage projects, and build software. The community, which currently includes more than 27 million individuals, benefits from a robust set of tools in areas like project management and code review.

Code review tools on GitHub are designed to improve overall code quality while also fitting into a team’s current workflow. Beginning with what’s known as a pull request, teams can review and improve code through a process that incorporates comments, changes, and comparisons. Moreover, several review tools are available to further refine the review process. These include:

- Codecov - a tool that allows coverage reports to be grouped and archived

- Codacy - an automated review tool designed to improve and speed up code review 

- Coveralls - a tool that ensures code is covered and provides coverage trend analysis

- CodeFactor - a GitHub automated code review tool

The Cognitive Benefits of Becoming Bilingual

A university student majoring in physics, Matt Kafker also pursues a variety of academic interests in his spare time. Driven to learn French and Spanish, Matt Kafker’s fascination with foreign languages and linguistics, which can have several cognitive benefits and benefit one’s professional and personal life, is evident.

Knowing more than one language is not only a potentially indispensable skill in an ever-shrinking world, but also beneficial to the brain’s chemistry. In recent years, studies have shown that learning another language can actually fend off certain diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. It also develops additional grey matter, which can improve the ability to multitask and increase attention span.

Moreover, bilingualism can open new creative pathways in the mind and make a person more apt to relate to and understand foreign cultures. Those who speak different languages can deal more readily with environmental changes and are more able to immerse themselves during international travel. Research from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has shown that bilingual people will emphasize specific character traits, depending on the language being spoken.

David Foster Wallace - A Look at His Life and Work

A graduate of Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, Matt Kafker now attends university in pursuit of a postsecondary degree. In his free time, Matt Kafker enjoys a variety of activities, including reading. He lists David Foster Wallace among his favorite authors. 

Born in 1962 in Ithaca, New York, David Foster Wallace was a prodigious novelist and essayist whose often dense writing is filled with a mix of dark humor, ironic wit, sadness, experimental language, and digressions in the form of footnotes. His best-known work is Infinite Jest, a massive novel comprising nearly 1,100 pages that are annotated with footnotes throughout. 

The publication of Infinite Jest in 1996 established Wallace in the literary world and attracted a devoted following of readers. The novel also caught the attention of many critics and earned Wallace a spot on a number of “best of” lists across the country. 

Although fans and critics anxiously awaited Wallace’s next novel, he never published another one in his lifetime. His writing following Infinite Jest was mostly in the form of short fiction and nonfiction pieces, published in collections such as A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. 

Over the course of his career, Wallace received several awards and accolades, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant and three O. Henry Awards. After battling depression his entire adult life, Wallace committed suicide in 2008. The novel he had been working on at the time of his death, The Pale King, was published posthumously in 2011.

Introducing Will Toledo’s Car Seat Headrest

Alongside his academic activities, university student Matt Kafker pursues various hobbies and interests, including reading and traveling. Matt Kafker also enjoys listening to the music of a number of bands, including Bon Iver, Radiohead, and Car Seat Headrest.

Car Seat Headrest was formed in Leesburg, Virginia, by guitarist Will Toledo, who began recording songs in his family’s car as a teenager. Toledo’s brand of angsty guitar-based rock carries on the tradition of indie heroes like Stephen Malkmus and Robert Pollard. 

Prior to the release of Car Seat Headrest’s first label-produced album in 2015, Toledo had already self-produced and released 11 albums on the music platform Bandcamp. Put out by Matador Records, his 2015 debut studio album, Teens of Style, features a handpicked selection of songs from Toledo’s Bandcamp catalogue. 

In 2016, Matador released Car Seat Headrest’s sophomore studio album, Teens of Denial. Featuring Toledo backed by an actual band, the album includes fan-favorite tracks such as “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales,” “Fill in the Blank,” and “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia.” Since releasing Teens of Denial, the band’s output has included the singles “War Is Coming (If You Want It)” and “Beach Life in Death,” which came out in December 2017.