Favorite Joke

Favorite Joke

Oct 15

I’m not sure if this is an urban legend or not, but I think it’s hilarious.

On a midterm test, the University of Washington’s Engineering Department asked, “Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?” as an extra credit question. Back up your claim. Exothermic refers to the process of releasing heat whereas endothermic refers to the process of absorbing heat. The majority of students attempted to respond using Boyle’s Law, which states that gas cools when it expands and warms up when it is compressed. One student, however, provided the following proof:

“To begin, we must understand how the bulk of Hell is changing throughout time. As a result, we need to know the pace at which souls enter Hell against the rate at which they exit Hell. Because I have yet to hear of a soul fleeing Hell, I believe we may reasonably infer that once a soul enters Hell, it will not leave. When it comes to the number of souls going to Hell, there are many different religions, all of which preach to some degree or another that failure to follow their religion will lead to eternal damnation. When Napoleon was taught that his heroes from antiquity were burning in Hell because they did not adhere to a religion that did not exist when they were living, he lost trust in the Roman Catholic religion of his upbringing. They can’t all be correct, which means that most of these faiths must be consigning their followers to Hell unknowingly. That suggests there is a steady flow of souls entering Hell. Given current birth and death rates, we may anticipate the number of souls in Hell to grow exponentially.

Now we’ll look at the rate of change in the volume of Hell, since according to Boyle’s Law, the volume of Hell must increase as souls are added in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to remain constant. This opens up two options:

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. 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.

Which is it, then? If we accept Teresa Banyan’s premise from freshman year, “…it will be a chilly day in Hell before I sleep with you,” Taking into consideration the fact that I have yet to have sexual contact with her, I can only assume that Hell is exothermic as the mass grows and the temperature does not drop.

This student received the only A.