Historical Event

For Penn State College Application

You are given the power, for one day, to be an invisible observer at an historic event. Although you will not be able to change the course or the outcome of the event, you will be able to bring back to the present all the insights you gain. Explain which historic event you would most like to witness, and why you think being an observer at that event would help you make an important contribution to the future.

If I could go back in time to one point in history, I would go to the founding of the universe. I would want to use this very special power to witness an event which we do not understand or have much record of. The founding of the universe is a fundamental question in human history. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is a multi-billion Euro project to find out more about how our universe started. If I was able to go back in time to the founding of the universe, I would be able to answer some of the questions scientists have without spending billions of dollars or 18 years building an experiment.

The search for more information about our planet has helped us enormously over time. When we started looking objectively about how the Earth worked, we discovered such things as micro organisms and the laws of physics. In the case of micro organisms, we were able to learn about diseases and how to prevent them. With physics, we know protect people’s lives in an automobile crash. By knowing more about our how our universe was founded, we would learn more about how to increase our own quality of life.