Dedicated to Dreamer Marie and Sporty... who will probably be the only ones to understand the joke

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Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

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Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls 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 souls entering hell, let's 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, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and 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 in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

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.
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 quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during 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 Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Comments

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHA!!!!

Oh, this just made my day. I wish I could get questions like that in exams - though I doubt I'd come up with anything this funny.

[sporty233.livejournal.com]

That is really brilliant!!! +rofl+

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

That was really funny! Though, I'm not sure souls actually do have a mass: there are particles out there, like photons, that don't have a mass.
Maybe hell is a black hole. That would explain why temptation is so hard to resist...
Thanks for this little article, it was funny and even thought-provoking.

[sporty233.livejournal.com]

Sorry to comment on ur comment Marie, but even a photon has a mass. Think about deBroglie..particle vs. waves..it is very, very small..but still not massless. (I know that we assume e- e.g. to have a mass of 0u, but it is (if I remember correctly) 1/1200 or so of the mass of a proton which is as you know 1u).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

the problem is however that according to Catholic doctrine, souls are wholly spiritual and have no physical being at all. Although the idea has been rejected in the past by Protestant theorists - the idea of the soul and of spiritual beings such as angels being made of "subtle substance" can be read in Milton. But I suspect that in this as in many other things, modern Protestants have abandoned their fathers' views. However, we might remember that we Catholics also believe in the resurrection of the body, and that it is a transfigured body, as well as a soul, that is destined for eternal life. Including eternal damnation. So the young man missed a bet there: he had no need to introduce the unphilosophical notion of a bodily soul, just to consider how many resurrected bodies will head for Hell after the Last Judgement.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

No, the mass of an electron is 1/1800 of the mass of a proton.
Still, are you sure of the photon thing? I know about the wave/particle duality, but I can't remember if it says anything about the mass of the particle, unless you equate kinetic energy to h*nu, and then of course there has to be a mass.
Come to think of it, maybe you're right: light *does* get deflected by gravity, according to Einstein. I've never done any relativity, but I think that's true.
I'll check in my Quantum Mechanics books tonight, OK? Not that I doubt what you're saying, but just so I know what I'm talking about.

[sporty233.livejournal.com]

Yeah you are right 1/1800 +stupid me+ However, I was thinking about this a little bit longer..and I think you are actually right.. Photons dont have a mass, but they do have a momentum and they basically carry energy. I made the mistake to assume that according to de Broglies wave-particle dualism a particle has a mass.. A photon travels with light speed..and if it had a mass, it couldnt travel with light speed.. I equaled momentum with mass..which is not true...
Sorry for that Marie..but it was never the less an interesting discussion..and it reminded me about a lot of quantummechanics stuff which I have learnt in theoretical chemistry a few years ago! :)

[patagonian.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what exothermic or endothermic is, but it still made me giggle.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Exothermic means that it gives off heat; endothermic means that it sucks heat in.

However, I could have that the wrong way round, like absorption and adsorption. Or was it apsorption? Ack.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

You got the exothermic/endothermic right. The difference between absorption and adsorption is that when you eat a cake with whipped cream you absorb it but when you get it thrown on your face you adsorb it.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Er..so, b implies some sort of interior assimilation of a foreign substance whereas d means it's just smeared on the outside?

(I'm not trying to be funny; chemistry was never my best subject so I'm trying hard to understand, honest!)

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

Yep, you got it! It's a lecturer in chromatography who gave me that explanation. I think it's a very good explanation.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

We never do stop learning, do we?

[patagonian.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I had a vague idea that's what it meant - but I was too lazy to look it up :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Exothermic = that releases heat. Endothermic = that contains heat.

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

I found this very entertaining, being a Chemistry Major. Hehe. :)