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Colpul
gatherer
Username: Colpul
Post Number: 152
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:55 pm: |     |
"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"
I might have kept teaching if I had had a few students with this much imagination.
Dr. Sanderson: "Think carefully, Dowd. Didn't you know somebody, sometime, someplace with the name of Harvey? Didn't you ever know anybody by that name?" Elwood P. Dowd: "No, no, not one, Dr. Maybe that's why I always had such hopes for it." |
Matt
hunter
Username: Matt
Post Number: 390
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:58 pm: | |
That's hilarious, Colpul. LOL!!!
September, the Final Hiking Album
"We sit together,
the mountains and I,
until only the mountain remains." -- Li Po (701-762 A.D.) |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 321
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 6:18 pm: | |
Wonderfully elegant and entertaining proof. However, the entire proof is constructed on the unproven presupposition that souls have mass. I know the Catholic Church has mass for the souls of the departed, but do the souls of the departed have mass?
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2290
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 7:03 pm: | |
Perhaps “volume” is the key, rather than mass.
1. The deceased don’t seem to lose any mass at death, but retaining volume is possible (being the shape of the former body). Souls would surely be defined as “incorporeal” but they traditionally retain a shape.
2. Given the reports of wailing and screams of agony, “volume” would seem to apply.
3. One would expect that a list of the souls in Hell is kept in some way. Some beliefs refer to a ‘Book of the Dead’. That would be a “volume”.
So, with those multiple “volumes” in play in Hell (and how often have you ever seen the phrase “play in Hell”?), Boyle’s Law does indeed seem to be the key to Hell’s temperature. What mass exists would be whatever the Hell it is that encloses Hell. By expanding, Hell should be exothermic.
Thus the student is correct.
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Colpul
gatherer
Username: Colpul
Post Number: 153
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 8:28 pm: | |
Angakuk: "but do the souls of the departed have mass?"
After looking into the 21 gram urdan legend here is the only proof I could find of a sudden weight loss at death:
Experiment of Dr. MacDougall in 1907:
"The patient's comfort was looked after in every way, although he was practically moribund when placed upon the bed. He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of moisture in respiration and evaporation of sweat.
During all three hours and forty minutes I kept the beam end slightly above balance near the upper limiting bar in order to make the test more decisive if it should come.
At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce.
This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had already been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of one sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was sudden and large, three-fourths of an ounce in a few seconds. The bowels did not move; if they had moved the weight would still have remained upon the bed except for a slow loss by the evaporation of moisture depending, of course, upon the fluidity of the feces. The bladder evacuated one or two drams of urine. This remained upon the bed and could only have influenced the weight by slow gradual evaporation and therefore in no way could account for the sudden loss.
There remained but one more channel of loss to explore, the expiration of all but the residual air in the lungs. Getting upon the bed myself, my colleague put the beam at actual balance. Inspiration and expiration of air as forcibly as possible by me had no effect upon the beam. My colleague got upon the bed and I placed the beam at balance. Forcible inspiration and expiration of air on his part had no effect. In this case we certainly have an inexplicable loss of weight of three-fourths of an ounce. Is it the soul substance? How other shall we explain it?"
This experiment doesn't seem to have been repeated anywhere I can find. It would be interesting to find out 1) if true 2) if true is the cause explainable.
Dr. Sanderson: "Think carefully, Dowd. Didn't you know somebody, sometime, someplace with the name of Harvey? Didn't you ever know anybody by that name?" Elwood P. Dowd: "No, no, not one, Dr. Maybe that's why I always had such hopes for it." |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 322
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 4:31 am: | |
Colpul,
I wonder if the souls of "large souled persons" weigh more than the souls of "mean spirited" people.
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1092
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 5:37 am: | |
Depends upon how you define a soul. If there is an energy component of any sort, the student is correct.
I have seen variations of this for about 10 years now, and once asked it on a Chem Exam that I set.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Darsina
hunter
Username: Darsina
Post Number: 498
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 4:29 pm: | |
You actually used it in one of your exams? Onya, Scott! Which answers and explanations did your students come up with?
IIRC you made a hilarious post on this very topic some time ago on our sister board that resembled a publication with all kinds of calculations. Can't find it, though. Do you happen to still have it? Would be great to read it again.
Thinking is the work of the intellect, dreaming its enjoyment. - Victor Hugo |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1116
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 25, 2005 - 7:56 am: | |
Sorry Darsina, I have been in Japan for the last three weeks. Most were very dumb answers, but I got a couple of students that got really creative and look at stuff like Boyle's Law, whether Hell is an open of closed system, thermodynamics and heat capacity and of course I got the answer: "Hell doesn't exist, therefore it is neither." I think I remarked that their centre of humour must have been excised at birth!.
I used it often on snap quizzes when I was a Teaching Assistant at Uni - my high school students were more creative!
Are you thinking of this:
http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/hell.html
quote:The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is the Bible: Isaiah 30:26 reads, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7 times 7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. With these figures we can compute the temperature of Heaven.
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation,
(H/E)^4 = 50
where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (300K),
gives H, the temperature of Heaven, as 798K (525 C).
The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone (or sulphur) means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6 C.
We have, then, that Heaven, at 525 C is hotter than Hell at 445 C.
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Darsina
hunter
Username: Darsina
Post Number: 500
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 4:50 pm: | |
Thank you, Scott, that was what I remembered vaguely! I think there's also another calculation that uses the mass of souls entrapped in hell respectively the soul density per square metre, based on population "data" (I have some troubles calling it data) mentioned in the bible. Oh, if just my memory wasn't that fogged at times.
As for your student who refused to play along, he may not be the most humorous guy on earth but he definitely had guts not to take the challenge. Besides, he was the only one who was right, wasn't he?
Thinking is the work of the intellect, dreaming its enjoyment. - Victor Hugo |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1122
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - 12:06 pm: | |
See Snopes.com's view on this story - it goes back into the 60's. I think I got this idea from my chemistry professor - a certain Dr. Polanyi - if memory serves me correctly. I remember he had a great sense of humour.
http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
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Mythology and Religion