This is a joke I picked up from a post by Sathinar off of the Dragonmount message board, who I think got it from the WoT message board, and I haven't traced it any farther than that. Whoever originally wrote this, wherever they are, I really like it, and I had to put it up.


The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term: "Is Hell exothermic(gives off heat) or endothermic(absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof." Most students wrote proofs of the 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 that 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 arenot 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 will 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 with 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 that during my freshman year that "it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you," and taking into account that in fact I still have not succeeded, then, �2(above) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is indeed Exothermic.

The student got the only A.




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