What If? Summary

Even if we all tried guessing every SAT question, the cosmos of probability makes it virtually impossible for anyone to score perfectly. Absurdity often takes us to the most fascinating truths.

1. Life Without the Sun

Life on Earth would change drastically if the Sun vanished, bringing unexpected perks—as well as tragic consequences. Missing solar flares, which cause geomagnetic storms capable of catastrophic disruptions to power and communications grids, wouldn’t trouble us anymore. In fact, such storms, like the infamous 1859 "Carrington Event," could cost trillions in today's economy.

Infrastructure costs would plummet, especially when roads and bridges froze over. Traveling across rivers would no longer need bridges if permanent ice blanketed waterways. Locally, the nearly $20 billion spent annually in the U.S. on bridge maintenance could be redirected.

One universal time zone would emerge, revolutionizing global trade and communication. There would be no time-zone hassle in this sunless, eternal night. Yet, this convenience pales in comparison to the grim reality: humanity would freeze, rendering these advantages moot.

Examples

• The 1859 geomagnetic storm shorted telegraph wires, causing fires.
• U.S. bridge repairs consume $20 billion annually.
• Single time zones could ease mishaps in global business hours.

2. Living on a Tiny Planet

Imagine inhabiting a miniscule asteroid like the one in The Little Prince. Such a compact world creates wild gravity distortions due to its small size and dense mass. Your feet would feel much heavier than your head because gravity weakens significantly just a few meters above the surface.

Running fast enough could launch you off this tiny world due to its low escape velocity, equivalent to a swift sprint of only 5 meters per second. Gravity on this micro-planet is quirky; running horizontally or jumping could catapult you into space.

If you didn’t launch but reached sufficient speed, you might end up orbiting the asteroid. Without a strong enough gravitational pull to bring you back, you’d float in a cosmic limbo around your tiny home.

Examples

• A 3.5-meter-wide asteroid with 500 million tons mass mirrors Earth-like gravity.
• Escape velocity would align with a 5 m/s sprint.
• Lying on a speeding merry-go-round creates a similar stretch-like force to living here.

3. Wikipedia's Printing Challenges

Printing and frequently updating a physical Wikipedia may sound impossible, yet only six high-speed printers could theoretically handle the task. With roughly 125,000 daily edits to the English Wikipedia, one page per edit means the right printers can keep pace.

However, financially, this endeavor would drain resources fast. Ink costs, at 5-30 cents per page, would account for $4,000–$5,000 daily expenses on ink alone. Paper, though cheaper, adds $1,000 more each day.

Running the operation for a month would rack up costs close to half a million dollars. Instead of facing this printing nightmare, embracing the digital format seems a much better—and lighter—solution.

Examples

• One good printer produces 15 pages per minute.
• Daily printing would tally up to $5,000 for daily ink expenses.
• The operation would cost $500,000 in just one or two months.

4. Isolation to Eradicate the Common Cold

Imagine if everyone isolated for a couple of weeks—humankind could rid itself of the common cold. Rhinoviruses, the culprits of most colds, can’t survive long without moving between human hosts.

However, quarantine logistics would create disasters. Economic productivity, valued at $80 trillion annually, would halt, leaving behind massive financial ruin. Space would also pose challenges; with each of us 77 meters apart, many would be stranded in deserts or polar regions.

Erasing colds by isolation could wipe out civilization. Exhausting as colds are, they help improve our immune systems, suggesting the trade-off might be far too steep.

Examples

• Rhinovirus infections last roughly ten days before clearing.
• Annual production interruption costs could reach trillions.
• Spacing citizens apart would place individuals in Antarctica or Sahara regions.

5. "Soulmate Roulette” May Not Pay Off

Having only one soulmate would make finding them an arduous and unlikely task. If each person makes fleeting eye contact with 52,560 people over their lifetime, the odds of meeting one soulmate among 500 million possibilities are minuscule.

Suppose technology stepped in to aid this quest. Solutions such as "SoulMateRoulette," akin to ChatRoulette, would allow people to screen billions of potential matches. Even so, intense time investment—chatting full time for decades—marks it an impractical approach.

Even if these efforts worked beautifully, social and economic inequalities mean only the wealthy could participate, leaving the concept of universal soulmate pairings a near-impossible ideal.

Examples

• Only 10% of strangers we encounter daily match "preferred age.”
• Humanity would need 10,000 lifetimes of eye contact to meet 500 million people.
• SoulMateRoulette would require participants to chat 8 hours daily for decades.

6. Outperforming an Entire Planet

A mid-range smartphone processes data about 70 times faster than Earth's population combined (working with pencil and paper-style calculations). Advancing to a high-end processor, computers leap further ahead—about 1,500 times faster than people collectively.

Yet computers falter against human intuition and perceptive tasks, such as interpreting rich emotional scenes in photos. Human brains are wired with immeasurable complexity few computational models approach replicating.

People activate pencil-and-paper-level cognition during simple tasks, but deeper brain activity far outpaces artificial structures designed for calculations alone.

Examples

• Average human calculation equals one instruction per 90 seconds.
• High-end processors outperform populations 1,500 fold.
• Humans excel in identifying subtle social cues computers fumble to recognize.

7. Guessing the SAT Shows Limitless Odds

Guessing all multiple-choice answers correctly on an SAT test proves practically impossible. The math reveals that the probability of acing 158 questions by blind luck equates to a one-in-27 quinqua trigintillion chance.

Even if Earth's total high school population took the SAT millions of times for 5 billion years, not one perfect guessing score is likely. By the time Earth melts under the Sun's red-giant phase, luck still wouldn't surface.

Preparation and studying, then, remain wise strategies. Blind guessing never rises as a workable plan, no matter how the odds spin.

Examples

• The odds formula: 1/(5¹⁵⁸)=1/(2.7x 10¹¹⁰).
• Perfect guessing through 3 sections mimics cosmic-level impossibility.
• Billions of years of trials wouldn't yield even one full section success.

8. The Rising Digital Graveyard of Facebook

Death will gradually paint Facebook profiles in somber hues. Per trends, profiles of deceased users could outnumber those of living ones by the 2060s if Facebook fades or halts growth.

However, continued growth might delay this turning point to the 2130s or beyond. As the internet often witnesses platform decline (like MySpace), expectations lean toward an earlier crossover date.

Regardless of the timeline, a slow build-up of memorialized profiles adds digital gravitas to our legacy, offering a unique historical archive about modern lives.

Examples

• Estimated 20 million user profiles belong to deceased people today.
• Around 290,000 U.S. users died on Facebook in 2013.
• Social changes predict declining Facebook share long before the 2130s.

9. Absurdity as Brain Juice

Absurd questions generate absurdly delightful discoveries. Consider the charm of answering odd curiosities—whether it’s living on a tiny celestial body, or calculating printing woes. The simple act of wondering brings humanity surprising creativity.

Creativity and science flourish where curiosity leads. Even mathematical musings, impossible scenarios, or bizarre trends infuse logic into hilarious epiphanies.

Sometimes pursuing far-fetched "what-ifs" unearth the exact pleasures adults and learners need—fun blended into the shock of learning.

Examples

• "What if the entire Sun winked away?” sparks theoretical survival tactics.
• Everyday connections reveal quirks, e.g., greater ink dependency versus truckloads-paper.
• Discussing minutiae can lead classrooms toward break-out questions & laughter.

Takeaways

1. Let curious questions fuel your creativity—there’s always a fun and revealing answer.
2. Analyze the outlandish with numbers, science, or imagination—facts often surprise us more than fiction.
3. Approach even routine problems (like Wikipedia upkeep) with fresh perspectives for resource-efficient answers.