Sunday, June 17, 2007

So I'm sure that some of you have seen this, as it's been going around on facebook or livejournal or whatever you happen to read. Basically, it's a short essay answer about the topic "Is hell endothermic or exothermic?" I believe it started on bash.org

so, at this college there was an extra credit question "Is hell endothermic or exothermic"

this is what one kid wrote:

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.

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 (i.e.,Hell is exothermic).

Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over (i.e.,Hell is endothermic).

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given by Ms.Therese Banyan during my freshman year, "That it will be a cold night in hell before I go out with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having a relationship with her, the second case cannot be true. Therefore, hell is exothermic.

the kid was the only one who got credit

But I have a small problem, and I would like someone to confirm that I'm not crazy.... or that I forgot all of my chemistry within a short week of not having school.

Here's the problem:

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 (i.e.,Hell is exothermic).

Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over (i.e.,Hell is endothermic).

I'm not quite sure about the first paragraph, so I'll work on that later. First look at the second paragraph in the quote:

If Hell is the system (which can be assumed, because it is the part that we are studying), then the following is true: If hell freezes over, that means that heat is leaving the system (hell) and entering the surroundings (everything else), causing the system to drop in temperature to the point of freezing. By definition, an endothermic reaction is one that absorbs heat (more specifically, heat leaves the surroundings and enters the system), and an exothermic reaction is one that releases heat (heat leaves the system and enters the surroundings.) That would make the quoted process exothermic rather than endothermic.

As for the first part of the quote, I don't quite know what to make of it. It would seem that if temperature and pressure increases, that means that heat is entering from the surroundings (unless in an isolated system), then that means that it's endothermic. However, this leads to possibly a combustion reaction ("all hell breaks loose" could be seen as an explosion), which is actually exothermic.

Given the two situations, both reactions are exothermic, so reasoning that lacking a date with Ms. Banyan means that hell is exothermic is unnecessary.

...am I crazy? :x
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