Catachresis

*I DID NOT WRITE THIS BUT FOUND IT PRETTY FUNNY*

If this is in the wrong forum, i apologise in advance.


"The following is 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 off when it expands and heats). One student wrote the following answer:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate 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. 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 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 still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze.

The student received the only "A" given."

anotherfailure

Catachresis... Is that an Autechre reference?

fando

I had an actual exam question that speculated on the thermal properties of Hell for an order of magnitude physics class. The assumptions were that Hell was underground, it took two days to walk there (forgot the reference, sorry), and that a soul is a physical object that obeys the laws of thermodynamics and the ideal gas law. The goal was to compute the soul population of hell, temperature of hell, the characteristic size of a soul, and whether the pressure in Hell was enough to hold up the Earth above it. I think Hell also had a definite size from some Bible reference. Wish I could find it.

Since it was an order of magnitude class (exercises the art of estimation), we had great fun making statements like: Since every religion condemns everyone outside of its fold to hell, it follows naturally that everyone is in Hell. Thus, the population of Hell today is equivalent to the number of people who have ever existed.

I recall my answer stated that a soul was about the size of an atom and the temperature of hell was roughly 5000 degrees kelvin. The integrated population of Hell was something like 40 billion. Others got wildly different answers.

Amit Misra

Where I went to school, we had syllabi that sort of spelt out the scope of the courses. If an exam had a question that was a little dicey, it was a favourite trick to walk out of the exam on the plea that the question was "out of the syllabus" and therefore unfair, and later badger the tutor to get a good grade...
The A student should ask for a re-exam and expand his ( it's a he-he's trying to make out with Teresa, remember?) thesis to ask.
(a) Which hell? The Nordic Hell, if I remember correctly, is freezing, while Valhalla is warm.
(b) What is the mass of a soul?
(c) Is the system isothermal or adiabatic?

There's the pedant for you!
amit

Corwin

Nice.... except that Hell can't be 5000 kelvin. All that brimstone....

Jeremy Pallant

Off to Humor, I think.

Catachresis

Yes, i cant believe someone would notice that, but I suppose its not exactly in everyday usage which is kind of why i choose it. Also slightly ironic...

excreationist

Maybe the lake of fire is different to hell, but anyway, this is from religioustolerance.org: