Three Mild Chuckles.

Poststructural Pub
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  1. “When the going gets tough, the tough listen to Pavarotti.”
    –my wife, after I just took a break from a paper on copyright law to
    listen to Nessun Dorma on YouTube.

  2. One of my students today was talking about splitting wood (this was a
    fifth grade girl, mind you) and finding a banjo in the woodpile. Besides
    the obvious “Deliverance” jokes and such, I have decided that the next
    tune I make up will be called “Banjo in the Woodpile.” It sings.

  3. There was something else, but my brain is filled with copyright law. Is that funny?

Well, I tried. :boggle:
Tom

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Even milder:

Friendship is like pissing your pants: everyone can see it, but only you can feel its’ warmth.

Life is like a jar of jalpeños: what you do today may burn your ass tomorrow.

A woman once said that a man is like a deck of cards. You need a heart to love him, a diamond to marry him, a club to beat him over the head, and a spade to bury him.

djm

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Seems as good a place as any to share this little gem… Definitely snicker worthy…

WARNING - adult content!

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is 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 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+.

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That is a cute story. Like most internet stuff (well, like most oral tradition too,) it’s taken on a life of its own and been embellished since its first world tour. Some of the Teresa stuff at the end is new, but cleverly done.
Also, I’m pretty sure the kid used to get an A, and now he’s getting an A+, so either the prof really liked the revision or there’s grade inflation at work!

Here’s a Snopes reference to the origins of the chem test story.
Sorry annie, etal…I’m not trying to be a wet blanket, I just find this internet urban legend phenomenon interesting. My sis-in-law just sent me one about margarine originally being invented to fatten turkeys (not,) and my mom gets freaked out about the rumors once in a while, so I’ve become a right pain-in-the-tush little debunking freak.

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I figured that was probably the case, but it was pretty darned funny anyway.

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Now Emmline I’m all for de-bunking myths and I applaud your efforts to hold this one too closer scrutiny, but I have seen this one before and some elements to the story deserve more careful consideration :wink:

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.

Curiously, I too was a U. of Washington Chem major (I won’t tell you how long ago), and the mid-term question purportedly posited to the student sounds all too much like the work of the infamous chem Prof. Norman Rose. Ah, Prof. Rose, the bain of the pre-med boobs and wanna-bees. He never used multiple choice questions, and he was found of such questions as ‘is hell endothermic or exothermic’, and he expected detailed written responses - and, yes, I believe he would have given this student an A+ for such a response :stuck_out_tongue:

As far as Teresa is concerned, I don’t recall the name, but, sadly, I must confess that more than one girl told me in one way or another

“It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,”

Ah, the good old days…
John