(humor) thermodynamics exam

[Djuna35 at aol.com]

It's not Pynchon, but some of you will enjoy this (apocryphal?) story...
steve


------
>A retiring Phys Chem professor was setting his last exam, for a graduate
>course in statistical thermodynamics. Being a bit bored with it all, and
>with a well kept and wry sense of humour, he set a single question on the
>sheet : 
>
>Is Hell endothermic or exothermic ?
>support your answer with a proof."
>
>He had little idea what to expect, or how to grade the results, but
>decided to reward any student who was able to come up with a reasonable
>and consistant reply to his querry. One A was awarded. 
>
>Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
>or some variant. The top student however wrote the following:
>
>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. There
>are two possible conditions. 
>
>One, 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
>exponentially until all hell breaks loose. 
>
>Conversely, 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, condition two. 
>
>We can solve this with the 1990 postulation of Theresa LeClair, the girl
>who lived across the hall from me in first year residence. Since I have
>still not been sucessful in obtaining sexual relations with her, condition
>two above has not been met, and thus it can be concluded that condition
>one is true, and hell is exothermic. 
>
>