Thread: Hell, Exothermic or Endothermic?

I was recently forwarded a interesting email with a student's answer to a question. The question was whether or not Hell was exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat). Here is the entire email which I received:

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

Hell from an engineering approach

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington engineering mid term. The answer was so profound that the Professor shared it with colleagues, which is 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 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 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:

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.
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 Teresa Banyan 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 still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze."

This student received the only A.

--End of Email--

Now, this is possibly one of the most valid answer that I have heard, but I've written one of my own anyways. It's a pretty rough first draft, but you can give it a look over if you like. Here it is:

Personally, I believe that Hell is exothermic; as according to Dante's Inferno we can see that Hell is in fact the center of the earth. This combined with modern sciences allow us to see that hell really is what we have come to call the earth's "core". Since the core is creating constant heat, we can see that Hell is also GENERATING heat. This means that Hell is not absorbing heat.

In addition, we can see that the core is not expanding, as doing so would increase the earth's temperature unbearably and killing all living things. And so we can see that the volume of Hell is staying the same.

This means that since Hell is constantly generating heat, and since there is no extra area within hell to absorb that heat, we can safely assume that this heat is escaping from Hell. If this was not true, then the pressure would build, and as the student has stated "all Hell breaks loose".

Since all Hell has not broken loose within the 2000+ years of Christian belief in Hell and the many more years of belief in Hell existing within other religions, we can assume that Hell will not break loose within the near and possibly far futures, despite claims of Global Warming. And since Hell is not breaking loose, it can only mean that the above statement that Hell is venting it's heat can only be true.

What all of this means is that since Hell has not broken loose, it is venting its heat. This means that the pressure in Hell is remaining constant despite the volume staying the same, resulting in a lack of Hell breaking loose. And since the heat is being vented, we can see that Hell gives off heat and is therefore exothermic.

Here is a breakdown of what I've done:

First Paragraph:
Varified what exactly Hell is, and varified that Hell generates heat.

Second Paragraph:
Varified that the volume of Hell stays the same

Third Paragraph:
Varified that if Hell did not vent heat, the pressure would build, and therefore All Hell Would Break Loose.

Fourth Paragraph:
Varified that since Hell has not broken loose, Hell must be venting it's heat

Fifth Paragraph:
Recap of the paragraphs and came to the conclusion that Hell is venting it's heat and is therefore exothermic.

Then again, that's just my opinion. I'd like to see if you can write a response back. And, please, let's not get into a debate about whether Hell actually exists; for the sake of the theories, lets assume that it does. I look forward to reading your theories!

Happy writing!
-Superlox3