rblog

What a morning, and not even on a Monday

I managed to forget my laptop three times today. First I went out of my appartement twice, just to remember that I had forgot it both times. The second was embarrasing, especially since I had travelled all the way to work. Finally, when at work I realized that I had forgot my laptop in the car when almost at my office….doh!!!

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Got this text from Marius, some in Norwegian, but most in English – for thoose of you not able to read Norwegian – don’t worry, you will still get the point 🙂

Gasser i Helvete og naturvitenskapelig bevisføring

Kjemi-studenter ved University of Washington skal etter sigende ha fått følgende
ekstraspørsmål til en ‘mid-term’-eksamen:

Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

De fleste studentene forsøkte å føre bevis med utgangspunkt i Boyles lov, dvs. at
temperaturen på gasser går ned når volumet utvider seg, og går opp når volumet
presses sammen. Én student hadde imidlertid en ganske original vri på besvarelsen,
som skal ha blitt belønnet med en ‘A’:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know
the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which 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. Most of these religions
state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since
there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more
than one religion, we can project that 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 proportionately 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. 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 Teresa during my Freshman
year that, “it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you”, and take into
account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and
thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of
this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting
any more souls and is therefore, extinct…leaving only Heaven thereby proving the
existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting “Oh
my God.”