How Hot Is It In Hell - A True Story
A thermodynamics professor at the University of Oregon had
written a
take home exam for his graduate students. It had one
question: "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 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 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 so Hell is exothermic.
The student got the only A. |
