The following is an actual question posed on a University of Washington chemistry mid term. The answer was so "profound" that the professor shared it colleagues, which is why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

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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 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, lets 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 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. Teresa Banyan 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 still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze.

THE STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" GIVEN.

This story actually dates back to a magazine in 1960! Funny stuff, tho

:)

AHaHaHaHaHa!! That is is a great post Alan, and very funny!

one is is enough please. GREAT post!!!

hmmm, well I wonder what the origin of it is? It must be a real answer to a real exam that happened sometime, I think. I've never heard it before, so I laughed. Quite clever.

According to the stuff in the snopes link, the original was just a parady story written for fun by a scientist. Isaac Asimov wrote some parady "science" proofs to when he was just becoming an author but still in graduate school. In fact, he was worried his professors would find out he was wirting silly stuff when he was supposed to bea serious student, and he thought no one knew he was publishing the silly stuff, and then when he defended his dissertation, the very last question they asked him was a straight-faced question about the joke sceince experiement he'd published.

I read somewhere else where there are actualy conferences where there is a joke panel, and the object is to present the most outrageously crazy "proof" of something whether it's crazy history or science.

So the original is just a joke,there never was a real exam, but you know how it is, jokes get passed around and then people think it's serious.

Like the comment that Dan Quayle "made" that he hoped he didn't go to Latin America because he doesn't speak Latin. He never said that, another Congressdroid did making fun of him, but someone over heard it, and it got attributed to him.

oops, beating this to death :)))

but it's just a joke, and started out as a funny joke, and it is pretty funny.

:)

I guess the guy from the University of Washington went to Hell for plagiarizing the original article!!!!

There is another theory put forth by one of the members of The Eagles (it may have been Don Henley). When asked soon after the band's break-up if the band would ever reform again, the reply was "Yeah...when Hell freezes over"...which was the name of their tour when the Eagles reformed and toured a few years back.

GSTK

Dr Asimov published his 'dissertation' 'The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline' in Astounding Science Fiction whilst working on his real Ph D at Columbia in 1948. He was actually quite afraid his stodgy professors would find out he'd poked fun at the Sacred Science of BioChemistry and boot him out of the programme, and they did ask him about the properties of Thiotimoline as the last question in his dissertation defense. He writes about it in In Memory Yet Green, which is the first volume of his autobiography.

Thiotimoline is the astonishing chemical that dissolves 1.12 seconds before it's added to water...

Academics can be strange creatures, some of them...I once described Charlemagne as the Jethro Bodine of the Middle Ages, cos he was really, and actually one of my professors, a man known for the rod up his bottom having a rod up its bottom, actually thoughtfully had to agree with this assessment...

cheers

PS, Apparently the postal code for Hell is 48169.

Just ring up the Chamber of Commerce, and ask for the mean temperature, I suppose, if this is a pressing issue....

Hell's main export, it sez here, is kitsch.

Located just 12 miles from Ann Arbor, Hell has a post office, a beer store, & an ice cream parlour, and a bar, and is very popular with bikers. There's a Kiwanis Club, too...

Hmmm...

Carey-

Hell is very close to where my parents have a cottage, so it's more like 22 miles from Ann Arbor, not 12.

Every year some doofus reporter from the Detroit TV stations feel the need to announce, in the winter, that Hell is in fact frozen over.

On the plus side there's a really nice restaurant there call the Dam Site Inn, which is clever as it's both in Hell and on a dam.

p.s. There's also a Climax MI too. So I guess we have heaven and Hell here.

I think and believe that hell is here, where we live. Like a song, it can mean anything to anyone

But at the end of the day folks, who knows the truth or anything like that? It was after all a man made topic, who on this earth even knows what heaven is?

Another one of those questions you ask yourselves

if somebody knows what heaven is before they pass over it's a new one on me.

You're not Mickey "Skinny" gervaise the supergrass who named Brian Reader in a burglary case, are you, by any chance? Thence the Once a Thief? So many things to think about, so little time

:)

PS What is heaven? Ben and Jerry's Wavy Gravy.

Could be yours, Gus, but to me, Heaven is Ben & Jerry's Phish Food (Chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmellow, caramel swirl & fudge fish - YUM YUM YUM!!!)

GSTK

Hey Alan, Amen, my brother....

:)

Gus "Who Will Not Be Chagning His Name to Ice Cream Headache But So Easily Could" Polidor

Technically, the definition of Hell is any place where God is not. That can be of one's own chosing and one's own making. Read Marlowe's DR. FAUSTUS for more details.