77. How Hot Is It In Hell?

How Hot Is It In Hell?

(a true story)

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 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 so Hell
is exothermic.

The student got the only A.