Subject: Very funny story for the scientifically inclined
 
 A retiring Physical Chemistry 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 humor, he set a 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.  Most of the students
 wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. The top
 student however 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 that 
 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 ratio 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 than 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 LeClair, 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 above has not been met, and thus it can be concluded that
 condition one is true, and hell is exothermic.
 
 
 From: Michelle

Wil Stark, wstark04 (at) pobox _dot_com

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