The best exam answer EVER!

[HoserHellspawn]

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: "Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up 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 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 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 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 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). Of course, 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 Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year, "That it will be a cold night in Hell before 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 so Hell is exothermic.

The student got the only A given.

 

[Russell]

In a philosophy exam I heard about sum1, who when asked what was the bravest thing they had ever done, they left 2 blank pages and wrote "this is". I thought that was quite cool

 

[Orchid]

That physics answer is goddamn brilliant, provided it's genuine. I remember my High School physics teacher telling all kinds of similar stories and he was always as amused as ever if someone answered his seemingly goofy (but yet problematic) question with even more witty answer. Seriously, his classes are the only thing I miss about High School... (slap!) ANYHOO, he made us realize physics isn't as stiff, theoretical and strict as mathematics. You're allowed to think logically in physics, and I don't doubt a second that particular guy got an A off of that.

 

[brightoffski]

I especially like the reasoning that led to #1 being selected as the most probable!

 

[Riotus]

That is the BEST thing i've seen all week!! Very VERY well done for finding that HoserHellspawn !!!!

 

[Opet]

Oh shit! That's fucking brilliant! He better have gotten an "A" for that! Talk about well thought out. I like that he included what brightoffski mentioned in it. That was great.

I think those answers that a few students answered with "This Is" were pretty funny too, because if you think about it, you're probably going to fail, but on the other hand...it really IS courageous to try and pull it off. Right?

 

[Jo]

"I think that we can safely assume" the way he thought that out is hysterical! Cheers Hoser!

 

[Villain]

Well, I had heard it over a year ago for the first time, but I still laughed at it even now.

-Villain (np: Eventide - Project177.mp3)

 

[S4R]

I actually did something like this in junior high school. My school was having a paper air plane contest. We were allowed nothing but a piece of paper. When it was my turn to throw people were shocked that I had no plane, just a piece of paper. I squeezed the piece of paper into a ball and threw it. My plane went the most distance, and I won, I remember my teachers liked that one.

 

[Opet]

@ S4R!

 

[Satori]

Yes, I too must give my vote of approval for this one, very entertaining stuff Hoser.

I recall in catholic high school I got a question on a religion test, something to the effect of "How does god want you to spend your free time?" (a good answer would've been praying or volunteering for charity, as opposed to smoking hash and playing drums which was my favourite activity at the time).

So anyway, I wrote: "Practicing math, cuz it's my weak point." and then I proceeded to write math problems from my math text book and solve them all over the remainder of the quiz sheet, hehe.

I got a 0% on that one. Boo-fucking-hoo. Call it my semi-silent protest of non-participation. I never did anything in that class, it was fun. I just got in there, took out my math book and calculator and started working on that. If the teacher asked me something directly I would answer (honestly), but other than that I never bothered to look up, what a bastard I was, hehe. If he got pissed at me and insisted I put away the math book I would calmly tell him that I had no intentions of wasting my time here and that if he didn't approve of my activities in his class that he should kick me out or send me to the office, reminding him that I wasn't disrupting his "teaching" the other students. I liked to cause havoc, so not much has changed, hehe, but my intent wasn't to cause havoc, it was to practice math, cuz I suck at math (well, maybe suck it too strong a word, I'm like "average" at math, which isn't great).

Those were the good ol' days, hehe.

Since then, my old high school wen't from being strict catholic to completely non-religious, so I feel a sense of positive retribution and gradification from that, being the sick fuck that I am.

muwahhahah,

Satori

 

[Mikael is God]

ahaha, my friend derek goes to xavier, its a school in NYC.... he had a shitload of tests in his "religious philosophy" class or whatever its called. one of the questions was like... "how can common logic explain the proof of god" so he just wrote
"it can't" hehe

 

[Satori]

Originally posted by Mikael is God
ahaha, my friend derek goes to xavier, its a school in NYC.... he had a shitload of tests in his "religious philosophy" class or whatever its called. one of the questions was like... "how can common logic explain the proof of god" so he just wrote
"it can't" hehe

wow, that's warped, hehe. Sometimes the propaganda is hidden in the questions. evil.

Satori

 

[Sadistik]

In my Philosophy class last year, my professor asked "According to Christian logic, when a good person dies their soul becomes ascended to heaven, and thusly a part of 'god', in the generalized sense. So, then, how is the true Chrsitian supposed to ensure that they have enough good in them to ascend to heaven after death?"

I wrote "eat the dead".

 

[TyrantOfFlames]

Originally posted by Satori
I got a 0% on that one. Boo-fucking-hoo. Call it my semi-silent protest of non-participation. I never did anything in that class, it was fun. I just got in there, took out my math book and calculator and started working on that. If the teacher asked me something directly I would answer (honestly), but other than that I never bothered to look up, what a bastard I was, hehe. If he got pissed at me and insisted I put away the math book I would calmly tell him that I had no intentions of wasting my time here and that if he didn't approve of my activities in his class that he should kick me out or send me to the office, reminding him that I wasn't disrupting his "teaching" the other students. I liked to cause havoc, so not much has changed, hehe, but my intent wasn't to cause havoc, it was to practice math, cuz I suck at math (well, maybe suck it too strong a word, I'm like "average" at math, which isn't great).

As usual, I will show that my opinions seem to collide with each other, because few people understand my mind at it's deepest level. Of course I would be expected to oppose this, (at least I think...I'm one of the few religion defenders here...), but I certainly won't. More power to you, Satori. I think this Catholic school stuff is B.S. Especially when it comes to the people who force their kids to go there, and the teachers who force everything down their throats. It's almost brainwash: A religion class is focussed on controlling a person's mind. If you do not answer with what our opinion is, then you get bad grades. You have to have the same opinions as us or you will fail. Son, do you want an F to bring your grade point average down? Of course not. "You are getting very sleepy...(You are a Catholic, You are a Catholic, You are a Catholic, You are a Catholic)...clap clap clap...feeling better?"

I think it's funny that you have always been so cynical. I'm not really clear on whether that is a good thing or not, but I am one as well. I seem to take some morbid comfort in it. Kudos!

 

[Heliologue]

On another note, has anyone heard a physicist's breakdown on the implausibilty of Santa Clause pulling off his work every year, going down chimneys, delivering presents?--- after a few mathematical calculations the conclusion was he'd have to travel and work at the staggering rate of something soemthing (place staggeringly high figure here- i forgot the number) Funny in a mild way.

E V I L, never fear:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly, BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the world (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, for a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and
etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second- a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload- not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, the will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4, 315, 015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

 

[Xtokalon]

Originally posted by saturnix



In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Poor Santa Clause,
that obese jolly fellow of infinite jest,
consumerism personified,
alas, he kicked thine bucket ages ago
because he loved us so.

 

[luke]

Originally posted by saturnix
353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

 

[Villain]

But I've seen him!!! You are lying, you foul un-believer! Santa lives and is well - he comes to my home every Christmas and gives the presents to me. Those other children just aren't as good as I am.

-Villain (np: Stone - "Sweet Dreams" - a modern christmas carol, I'd say)

 

[Will Bozarth]

deserves a bump