College Chemistry Extra Credit Question

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 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. Of course, 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 THE ONLY "A" IN THE CLASS

Great!

LMFAO! That is F'n priceless

ahahahaha

nice

Nice!!

Thats funny.The guy deserves the A.

What a great way to start off the day! OUTSTANDING!

Pappy

Excellent

That is just too good..<<grin>>

OMT

__________________
I would rather make it work than make it popular..And if it does not work it will not be popular..

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp

really, you should always reference Urban Legend sites before posting this kind of stuff...

I'll do my research next time

How do you reference something you know didn't existed? "Urban Legend" sites, how many are there? Of course reading through or searching through them just to verify something that is funny anyway would be way too time consuming, at least for me.

But I'll be sure to at least try next time. Ed

Edit:
Okay, I tested out that site and see that it is very efficient in checking. I had an E-mail of a "Grizzly Bear" about a year ago and always suspected it was at least "embellished". I typed in "grizzly bear" in the search feature and found this. Warning - it contains some pretty graphic pictures, but it confirmed that it was embellished a bit by the last photo.
Ed.

I always check snopes.com

they have a search engine" and usually you can punch in a title or phrase or name of a suspected "legend"

as you can see, they usually mark things true or false, I guess this one couldnt be proven ewither way...

Cruise there site, you'll be shocked at hom many "stories" you have heard that end up being urban legends!! As a kid I always thought "mikey" died from eating pop rocks and coke!!

Funny, I must have been editing my comment as you made your follow-up. I saved Snopes.com to my favorites.

Yeah, I remember the Mikey and pop-rocks story. And poor Rod Stewart. Glad to see that one falsified.

Thanks, Ed

Haha, how could think that "this was a student answer" story was real to begin with?


I wish it was all true, then every time someone tells me that I'm going to hell I could say "no, hell is closed."

Thuss; hell for really bad people is like being inside a 500cu hemi dragster motor at full throttle FOREVER! and less bad people like,well,like a lawnmower motor.