Published: Heat Transfer and Partial Differential Equations

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Intelligence Quotient - A Flawed Construct

In addition to studying mathematics, Matthew “Matt” Kafker is well-read and has explored a wide range of authors and subjects. A university student, Matt Kafker is reading the works of essayist and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, such as Incerto.

Mr. Taleb is known for writing essays that cover topics focusing on randomness, probability, and uncertainty. In an essay published last year, the essayist argues that IQ is, for the most part, a “pseudoscience fraud.” The author’s paper includes some of the other criticisms of traditional IQ tests, but he also refutes the mathematical construct on which intelligence tests are supported.

The author suggests that these intelligence tests have the potential to determine more than smartness. When looking at other exams, those who have not scored well on IQ tests typically would score poorly on college entrance exams, simply because many of these exams are based on IQ tests, which suggests there is bias in most standardized testing.

The author also addresses the weaknesses in the statistical model from which it draws its conclusions. The author questions the validity of the test because co-variance between IQ and performance is un-informational, or it simply does not exist. The figures support a finite number in a sample that does not exist, and this can lead to overestimating the prediction.

Another flaw relates to the way standard deviation is used to explain probability, and he mentions this in terms of the way IQ has been used to define race. Mr. Taleb argues that richer models have to be developed because different groups require different variances and skewness. These tests have to take into consideration nuances across cultures and groups.

A Brief Look at Einstein’s General and Special Theories of Relativity

Accomplished student Matthew “Matt” Kafker graduated as an AP Scholar and National Merit Commended Student from Middlesex School prior to enrolling as an undergraduate student. As a university student, Matt Kafker majors in physics and has completed several courses related to the field, including electrostatics and special relativity.

Special relativity, or the Special Theory of Relativity, is one part of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Developed in 1905, special relativity notes that the speed of light is constant, regardless of whether the observer is moving through space or not. In essence, if someone is driving a car alongside a train, the train is moving at a constant speed, regardless of whether the car is moving with the train, against the train, or staying still. However, at the same time, Einstein noted that the mass of a moving object increases with speed, while the passing of time decreases with speed.

Alongside his theory of special relativity, Einstein created his general theory of relativity some 10 years later. According to this theory, objects in space distort space-time when they have a high mass, thereby creating a gravitational field. This concept is illustrated by thinking of a trampoline with a body in the middle. The weight of the body presses down on the fabric and causes the trampoline to dip in the middle. A marble placed at the edge of the trampoline will be drawn to the middle because of this.

Japanese Researchers Succeed in Growing Ancient Microbe

Petri dish
Photo by Drew Hays on Unsplash

Physics major Matt Kafker studies a range of soft and hard science subjects as a university student. In addition to studying psychology, linguistics, and foreign languages in school, Matthew “Matt” Kafker is involved in research related to microbial ecology, a field that studies bacteria colonies in varying environments.

In August 2019, a team in Japan announced that it had successfully grown a simple organism from mud that had been collected from the seabed. This success came after 12 years of attempts, and could serve as the missing link between complex and simple cells.

The entire process began in 2006 when the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology obtained a sample of seabed mud brought up from the Omine Ridge, a 2,500-meter-deep ridge of the coast of Japan. Researchers eventually discovered microbes in one of the tubes of mud. Some of these microbes belonged to the class Asgard archaeon, a specific type of microbe that scientists believe played a role in the formation of mitochondria about 2 billion years ago.

These microbes are very difficult to detect and study since they grow slowly and in inhospitable environments. However, the scientists in Japan were able to get enough of the microbe to study after about 20 days. This ultimately led to them growing arachaea prometheoarchaeum syntophicum, a single-cell organism that contained some of the same genes found in eukaryotes, which are sophisticated microbes found in plants, humans, and other animals.

Though it’s not clear whether this microbe was a true ancestor to eukaryotes, the ability to grow Asgard archaea will help advance additional studies into microbiology and the early stages of life.

A Literary-Historical Account of The Gulag Archipelago

Gulag
Image: wikimedia

University student Mathew Matt Kafker loves reading. One of the books Matt Kafker is reading in 2019 is “The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 

The Gulag Archipelago is a historically vivid description of the horrors committed by the Soviet Union government on its own people held in labor camps following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 through all the way into Stalin’s rule. Gulag is an acronym for the Soviet Union’s governing agency for labor camps, while archipelago is a metaphor that aptly captures how these labor camps were spread out, like a chain of islands.

The book draws heavily from the experiences of the author, himself a survivor of the prison camps, and those of other prisoners. It also borrows from historical sources, including letters. The book gives readers outside the Soviet Union a picture into the regime’s brutality, describing how camps that only held a few people in 1917 saw their numbers swell to 15 million in the 1940s, many of whom were “politicals.” It chronicles how these people were transferred from camp to camp all the while being subjected to starvation, rape, torture, and inhuman living conditions.

The first volume of the book was published in 1973 in Paris, France. Afterward, the Soviet press denounced Solzhenitsyn. He was arrested a year later, charged with treason, and exiled from the Soviet Union.

Learning, Service, and Fun at Global Works Costa Rica Trip

Teens having fun
Image: pexels.com

Mathew "Matt" Kafker was a high honors and high credits student at his former high school, Middlesex School. During his time there, Matt Kafker took part in a Global Works trip to Costa Rica, where he helped renovate a local school. 

Global Works is an organization that provides teens with travel experiences that also incorporate community service, cultural exchange, adventure, and language immersion. These travel programs benefit not only the teens involved, but also the foreign communities the teens visit. These communities receive assistance in funding and in completing service projects. 

During the trip to Costa Rica, for example, Kafker and his friends were housed by a family in La Lucha. They interacted with the family over meals and even helped prepare local delicacies like tortillas and picadillo. They also interacted with local children through games like tag, sack racing, and jump rope, and even taught the local kids some American football. 

For their service work, the team helped renovate a local school. They mixed and poured cement for the school’s new side walk, painted the school’s exterior with fresh paint, and covered its drainage system with dirt. They also assisted the students in planning for English lessons. In between all this, they got to tour San Jose, paddle in deep forest rivers, dance salsa and merengue, marvel at the hot springs of Baldi, and go zip lining across the canopies.

An Introduction to the Three Stages of the Memory Process

University student Matthew “Matt” Kafker focuses much of his schooling on four main fields: computer science, physics, math, and literature. Over the years, Matt Kafker has taken dozens or classes relating to these academic interests, as well as courses in psychology.

One of the more basic concepts of psychology is that of memory. According to most psychologists, the human memory process involved three stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

The process of receiving and combining information from the outside world is referred to as encoding or registration. During encoding, the brain perceives visual, semantic, and acoustic stimuli from a person’s surroundings and uses them to either create a short-term or long-term memory. When creating short-term memories, the encoding process is more shallow since these types of memories are easily forgotten.

Once encoded, the brain stores information in several different areas. It’s believed that most adults are capable of storing between five and nine short-term memories that are about zero to 30 seconds long. Meanwhile, they are capable of storing an unlimited amount of long-term memories. Despite this ability to have an unlimited number of long-term memories, humans rarely remember every memory for their entire lives. This has always been a controversial subject that is mostly tied to the retrieval stage of memory.

The final stage of memory involves calling back stored information for use in an activity or process. In many cases, this recall ability is a response to a cue that has been tied to the creation of the memory, such as a specific smell or sound. One of the most common reasons why memory fails is because a person loses the ability to retrieve specific memories. However, issues with memory can stem from any of the three stages of the memory process.