The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry midterm, and an actual answer turned in by a student. The answer by this 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, which is unlikely. 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 two 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 AN A+.

I must've first saw that over five years ago.

Got a link by the way?

Ah... Ye Olde Email Forward



Been around since at least the 90s, and probably older than that.

Yeah, it's been around a while. Some are so good they're worth revisiting from time to time. Don't have a link.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Ah... Ye Olde Email Forward



Been around since at least the 90s, and probably older than that.

Speaking of the Ten Commandments...

Here is why God gave the Jews the Ten Commandments:

God first went to the Canaanites and asked if they would like just one commandment from the Torah.

"What commandment?" they asked.

"Thou shalt not kill," replied God.

The Canaanites thought it over and said, "No thanks, we'll pass."

God then went to the Ishmaelites and asked if they would like just one commandment from the Torah.

"What commandment?" they asked.

"Thou shalt not steal!" thundered God.

"Are you crazy?" they replied. "No thanks."

So God finally went to the Jews and asked if they wanted one commandment.

"How much?" they asked.

"Uh…well, they're free," God replied.

"OK, we'll take ten."

Was an oldie but goodie when first I saw it undergrad in the late '70s.

In that version, the protagonist was working on a thermodynamics exam. It being the '70s, Theresa had not been so accommodating, so Hell was not frozen and the logic was reversed.

Also, in the '70s profs shared things via 300 baud acoustic-coupled modem rather than the Internet. That being an update from mailing punch card decks, they were content nonetheless.

I have never seen it and found it to funny, thanks for posting OP.

Tough crowd today, eh Tooky?



Link to original video: https://youtu.be/nXeTsWGPT0w

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
Tough crowd today, eh Tooky?



Link to original video: https://youtu.be/nXeTsWGPT0w

Tooky needs to spend more time in the Lounge to get used to it.

quote:

Originally posted by old dino:
Being an old physics and aerospace major freak ... I love this !

Physics? Here's another one just for you...

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

Abstract: The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a complete waste of my time.

Introduction
Electrons in germanium are confined to well-defined energy bands that are separated by "forbidden regions" of zero charge-carrier density. You can read about it yourself if you want to, although I don't recommend it. You'll have to wade through an obtuse, convoluted discussion about considering an arbitrary number of non-coupled harmonic-oscillator potentials and taking limits and so on. The upshot is that if you heat up a sample of germanium, electrons will jump from a non-conductive energy band to a conductive one, thereby creating a measurable change in resistivity. This relation between temperature and resistivity can be shown to be exponential in certain temperature regimes by waving your hands and chanting "to first order".

Experiment procedure
I sifted through the box of germanium crystals and chose the one that appeared to be the least cracked. Then I soldered wires onto the crystal in the spots shown in figure 2b of Lab Handout 32. Do you have any idea how hard it is to solder wires to germanium? I'll tell you: real goddamn hard. The solder simply won't stick, and you can forget about getting any of the grad students in the solid state labs to help you out.
Once the wires were in place, I attached them as appropriate to the second-rate equipment I scavenged from the back of the lab, none of which worked properly. I soon wised up and swiped replacements from the well-stocked research labs. This is how they treat undergrads around here: they give you broken tools and then don't understand why you don't get any results.

In order to control the temperature of the germanium, I attached the crystal to a copper rod, the upper end of which was attached to a heating coil and the lower end of which was dipped in a thermos of liquid nitrogen. Midway through the project, the thermos began leaking. That's right: I pay a cool ten grand a quarter to come here, and yet they can't spare the five bucks to ensure that I have a working thermos.

Results
Check this shit out ( Fig. 1 ). That's bonafide, 100%-real data, my friends. I took it myself over the course of two weeks. And this was not a leisurely two weeks, either; I busted my ass day and night in order to provide you with nothing but the best data possible. Now, let's look a bit more closely at this data, remembering that it is absolutely first-rate. Do you see the exponential dependence? I sure don't. I see a bunch of crap.
Christ, this was such a waste of my time.
Banking on my hopes that whoever grades this will just look at the pictures, I drew an exponential through my noise. I believe the apparent legitimacy is enhanced by the fact that I used a complicated computer program to make the fit. I understand this is the same process by which the top quark was discovered.

Conclusion
Going into physics was the biggest mistake of my life. I should've declared CS. I still wouldn't have any women, but at least I'd be rolling in cash.

I have seen it a few times over the years, but it is still funny.