[1934] in Humor
HUMOR: The Physics of Hell
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 5 22:18:40 1997
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 22:12:47 EST
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 21:01:21 EST
From: Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>
From: terry@cs.cmu.edu
From: Patrick Rowe <patrick@REC.RI.CMU.EDU>
Physics Story
A true story. A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for
his graduate students.It had one question:
Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof.
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or
some variant. One 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, 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 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. So, 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.
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.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
It was not revealed what grade the student got.
