What the hell ...
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry midterm:
"Is
Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)?
Support your answer with a proof."
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
First,
we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time.
So, we need
to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the
rate they are leaving.
I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to
Hell, it
will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering
Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in
the world today.
Some of these religions state that if you are not a member
of their religion,
you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of
these religions
and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we
can project
that all people and all souls go to Hell. With birth and
death rates
as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to
increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in
Hell because
Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and
pressure in
Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as
souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
(1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
(2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year, "That it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then: (2) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic.
* The student got the only A.
