Accents
Hell hath no fury...
Nevermore has hell been demonized than by my friend Bill S., Shakespeare anyway. To satisfy the literature lover, here is the quote in its entirety: "Hell hath no fury more than a woman scorned." For all his renowned prescience, the great playwright could be passé or proved wrong by science in his comparison. Hell is no longer the hellish condition that Shakespeare had in mind as you will read further on in this column.
Even the expression Come hell or high water is greatly diminished in its bravado. The challenge of high water, however, is still there when you come to think of tsunami. The blaze of hell fire, on the other hand, is tapering off -- with the idea of searing heat getting cold treatment from this forwarded e-mail from my cousin Irma "Mimi" Gedang. A doctor -- an anesthesiologist -- Mimi knows whereof she writes. Says she: "This is a good one! Enjoy!"
HELL IS NO LONGER AN OPTION is subtitled Bonus Question on Chemistry Exam. 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 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 my girlfriend 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 Hell is
exothermic and has already frozen over.
The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen, 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, my girlfriend kept shouting "Oh my God."
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)