HEADLINES:
Something went wrong in jet crash, expert says.
Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers.
Drunk gets nines months in violin case.
Survivor of Siamese twins joins parents
Stolen painting found by tree
Safety experts say school bus passengers should be belted
Two Soviet ships collide one dies
If strike Isn't settled quickly It may last a while
Cold wave linked to temperatures
Red tape holds up new bridge
Chef throws his heart into helping feed needy
Deaf college opens doors to hearing
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How Hot Is It In Hell? (A True Story from a Yale professor)
A thermodynamics professor 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 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. 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 most 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.
Second, 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 Miss Theresa 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 with her, then #2 cannot be true, and so
Hell is exothermic.
The student got the only A.
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