Yet another in Ern Sheong’s series of revealed Stanford Essays. This one is rather nonsensical and if it does not make sense to you, don’t bother. Some understanding of physics may be required. To be frank, until now, I have no idea what intellectually engaging means. Could be anything, really.

Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging. (1800 characters)

The Physics essay prompt asked, “What would happen if the Planck’s constant, h, were ten orders of magnitude larger?” As I pondered, I realized that such a notion was preposterous! Changing this important constant by even a millionth of a decimal would obliterate life or render the existence of the Universe impossible! For that matter, so would the change in any other physical constant! But suppose I were in a resistant-to-the-outside-world control room filled with circular dials that control the physical constants of the Universe. What would happen if I decided to be naughty and tinker with the Planck’s constant dial? Turn it clockwise a little? …a little bit more? From a Physics equation (E=hf), I deduce that a light photon would carry a lot more energy. Sunlight would resemble lasers which “shoot holes” into earth’s matter—a relentless roasting of the planet! Thanks to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, random holes would appear in the living room caused by energetic photons emitted from the Sony Plasma TV screen. Radio waves would have fried bacon and eggs without a stove. A cup of Starbucks coffee held in hand would have caused serious third-degree sunburns. But all this assumes that the world existed until I came along one day to tweak an omnipotent dial. If the dial were in a tinkered position all along, atoms would not have existed due to the lowered ionization energies. The Big Bang would not have happened, and even if it did, the Universe would be destroyed moments after its creation. The precise values of the physical constants illustrate a not-so-random Universe. Be it the gravitational constant, the Planck’s constant or any other physical constant known to man, all apparently worked together to create human life. Thought-provoking? Definitely!

Stanford: My Dream School

Disclaimer: This is by no means a model Stanford essay. I was deferred in EA for admission in fall 2008.