Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?
 

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :


Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats 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 at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which 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.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that 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 proportionately 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. 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 Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'


THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+ :haha:

that is hilarious, but its very old. it is at least 10 years old. My chem prof actually talked and showed us this exact response when i was back in chem12.

it wasn't the same as I read last time...probably some people have changed the words there

Wow. Amazing report. So I assume I will go to hell.

holy shit LOL

have you been living under a rock or something?

haha that is good

it seems that...yes....yes i have :p

me apparently too =)

new to me since it's soo old.

the last paragraph is epic lol

odds are it was never even a question on any exam :P

lols... thats called applying what you've learned!

Hmm, I've actually never come across this before either... not that I really care for it now that I have.

This joke has been around forever. Still funny though! :)

the last 5 threads i have been to have all be reposts =|

ty but very old... remember reading this in grade 9 or 10... and i've gradded from U a a year already

Super old repost!

But yeah... pretty good argument, you can argue that anything and everything is in your perspective true/false and within reasonable doubt :P

never read it before.

i've never read that before either. but damn that was good.

Someone spends too much time on the internetz.

this is older than hell

I remember, I read this back on some BBS back in the early 90's.

awww yeah, modem connection. Took like 2 mins to load the joke. lol

I read this before, but still a good read