The Loony Bin
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loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
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Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:57:09 +0100
Hiya All...
In this essay, Shelley shares with us a solution to one of theology and
science's enduring mysteries...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
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**********************ANDROMEDA************************
------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
A retiring Heat Transfer professor was setting his last exam for a
graduate course in statistical thermodynamics. Being a bit bored with
it all, and with a well kept and wry sense of humour, he posed the
following single question on the sheet:
Is Hell endothermic or exothermic ? Support your answer with a proof.
He had little idea what to expect, or how to grade the results, but
decided to reward any student who was able to come up with a reasonable
and consistent reply to his query. One 'A' was awarded to the student
who 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, 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 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 in volume in hell. Boyle's law states that in order for the
temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ration of the
mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. There are two possible
conditions:
One, if hell is expanding at a slower rate that the rate at which souls
enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase
exponentially until all hell breaks loose.
Conversely, 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, condition two.
We can solve this with the 1990 postulation of Theresa, the girl who
lived across the hall from me in first year residence. Since I have
still not been successful in obtaining sexual relations with her,
condition two has not been met, and thus it can be concluded that
condition one is true, and hell is therefore exothermic.