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The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound"
that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is,
of
course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

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

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas
cools when it expands and heats 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 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".

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2924, old post ID:23829

LMAO. That reminds me of a similar story where the college professor wrote something like:

Why is the mass of a bowling ball higher than the mass of a ton of feathers (or something like that).

And the student wrote: "Why not"

It appeared that the question the professor wrote was written incorrectly. So the student received full marks for the question.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2924, old post ID:23830

Yeah I heard something like that. Another one was: "can you calculate [something]" and the student aswered "yes" because he could, but the question did not say to actually do it. It actually ended up in court and he got his marks. LOL

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2924, old post ID:23831

Nice one. If I were the professor and the student wrote something like that, I'd see it as a sign of genious and give him/her full marks

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2924, old post ID:23833