Question from a University of Washington chemistry midterm:
Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer.
(Most students wrote proofs of their
beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when expanding and heats when
compressing), or
some variant.
One particular student answered:
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 that 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 that 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 distinct 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, or
2. 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. Therese 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, therefore Hell is exothermic.
(The student got the only A.)
