A True Story...
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 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
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. 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.
