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Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?
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, and the sharing obviously hasn’t ceased…
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 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 us 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:
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 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.(SOURCE)
I sincerely doubt that this is true but it is hilarious so I am obligated to post it.
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"This past summer, I gathered a group of 20 babies between the ages of 14 and 20 months. I handed each one a BlackBerry. No sooner had the babies grasped the phones than they swiped their little fingers across the screens as if they were iPhones, seemingly expecting the screens to come to life. It appears that a whole new generation is being primed to navigate the world of electronics in a ritualized, Apple-approved way."
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Psychology 101:
A psychologist at a girl’s college asked the members of his class to compliment any girl wearing red. Within a week the cafeteria was a blaze of red. None of the girls were aware of being influenced, although they did notice that the atmosphere was more friendly. A class at the University of Minnesota is reported to have conditioned their psychology professor a week after he told them about learning without awareness. Every time he moved toward the right side of the room, they paid more attention and laughed more uproariously at his jokes, until apparently they were able to condition him right out the door.
– W. Lambert Gardiner, Psychology: A Story of a Search, 1970
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"What you have is rather like birds on the Galapagos islands — an isolated population with unique selective pressures resulting in evolutionary divergence from the mainland population. There’s no reason you should be able to understand what these academics are saying because, for several generations, comprehensibility to outsiders has not been one of the selective criteria to which they’ve been subjected. What’s more, it’s not particularly important that they even be terribly comprehensible to each other, since the quality of academic work, particularly in the humanities, is judged primarily on the basis of politics and cleverness. In fact, one of the beliefs that seems to be characteristic of the postmodernist mind set is the idea that politics and cleverness are the basis for all judgments about quality or truth, regardless of the subject matter or who is making the judgment. A work need not be right, clear, original, or connected to anything outside the group. Indeed, it looks to me like the vast bulk of literary criticism that is published has other works of literary criticism as its principal subject, with the occasional reference to the odd work of actual literature tossed in for flavoring from time to time."
- “How To Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure” by Chip Morningstar. -
Dinosaur Feathers Have Been Found Preserved in Amber (slideshow)
There you go, Creationism. Boom, roasted.
(via unruled)
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Newly discovered exoplanet is the most Earth-like we’ve seen yet
Scientists have discovered an Earth-like plant approximately 31 light years from Earth and there’s a strong possibility of it harboring life. HD85512b orbits an orange dwarf in the constellation Vela and is the right distance from the sun to make it one of the most Earth-like planets ever discovered. The plant is three-and-a-half times the mass of Earth and is in the inner part of the “goldilocks zone” which means it’s not too hot or cold for liquid water to be present. The size of the planet suggests an Earth-like atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen rather than the hydrogen and helium that dominate the atmospheres of larger worlds.
Read more.(via fruitfulpetrichor)
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High Resolution123 years ago, Thomas Edison produced the very first commercially-available recording - a woman reciting “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
And today, thanks to the work of a few scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, we can hear the recording again. Using a confocal microscope, the researchers were able to map the topology of a badly damaged cylinder on which the recording was made. They then converted the grooves into sound, and - voila! - a century-old woman’s voice came back to life. The recording was sold with a doll, which could be cranked to recite the nursery rhyme.
You can listen to the rather haunting recording here.
(via sheissocold)
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“Hey, know any good jokes about sodium?” “Na.”
I zinc we’re better than that, guys.One of the better jokes I’ve xenon here
It’s not their fault all the good jokes argon.
These kind of jokes are getting boron now, really, they’re getting gold.
They are sodium, seriously.
If I had a nickel for every joke like this I’d beryllium, rich, I guess?
Sorry if I radon your little periodic parade.
(Source: reddeadrevolver, via hungryhungryhiba)
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Westerners 'programmed for fatty foods and alcohol'
akio:
Westerners could be genetically programmed to consume fatty foods and alcohol more than those from the east, researchers have claimed.
Scientists at the University of Aberdeen say a genetic switch - DNA which turns genes on or off within cells - regulates appetite and thirst.
The study suggests it is also linked to depression.
Dr Alasdair MacKenzie conceded it would not stop those moving to the west adapting to its lifestyle.
Huh. So…I have no excuse.
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(via fruitfulpetrichor)
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The hemline index
Interesting extracts from a 2008 NYT article:
Looking at Billboard No. 1 songs from 1955 to 2003 for a study to be published in the journal Psychology of Music, he found that in uncertain times, people tend to prefer songs that are longer, slower, with more meaningful themes.
The Environmental Security Hypothesis that he and his colleagues have been testing, positing that people look for reassurance in worrying times, also helped explain why Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Year in bad times tended to have a more mature appearance — that is, to be older, heavier, taller and less curvy — than those selected when times were good. Similarly, in a study of American movie stars from 1932 to 1955, he found actresses with mature features — small eyes, large chins, and thin faces — more popular in hard times.
“During a recession, laxatives go up, because people are under tremendous stress, and holding themselves back,” said Shapiro, now chief executive of SAGE, a Chicago-based consulting firm. “During a boom, deodorant sales go up, because people are out dancing around. When people have less money, they buy more of the things that have less water in them, things that are not so perishable. Instead of lettuce and steak and fruit, it’s rice and beans and grain and pasta. Except this time the price of pasta’s so high that it’s beans and rice.”
Almost anything can be an economic indicator. Back in the 1920s, the economist George Taylor conceived the hemline index, finding that skirts got longer as the economy slowed. These days, there’s been talk of a haircut index, with short locks signaling a market drop.
“People are physically healthier in times of recession,” said Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “Death rates fall, people smoke less, drink less and exercise more. Traffic fatalities go way down, which is not a surprise when people drive less. Heart attacks go down. Back problems go down. People have more time to prepare healthier meals at home. When the economy weakens, pollution falls.”
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"Why do we keep re-creating the same reality? Why do we keep having the same relationships? Why do we keep getting the same jobs over and over again? In this infinite sea of potentials that exist around us, why do we keep re-creating the same realities? Isn’t it amazing that we have options and potentials that exist, but we’re unaware of them? Is it possible that we’re so conditioned to our daily lives… so conditioned to the way we create our lives… that we buy the idea that we have no control at all? We’ve been conditioned to believe that the external world is more real than the internal world."
-What the Bleep Do We Know!?
This was a thought-provoking movie. Only kind of awkward because there were some nudity/sex scenes, I remember, and I was watching it with my parents…
(Source: likethesun, via inafunk-deactivated20110629)
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High ResolutionThis is incredible: a Silicon Valley startup, Lytro, has developed a new kind of photographic technology that allows user to adjust the focal point of a picture AFTER it’s taken.
That’s AFTER.
How does it work? According to the New York Times:
The Lytro camera captures far more light data, from many angles, than is possible with a conventional camera. It accomplishes that with a special sensor called a microlens array, which puts the equivalent of many lenses into a small space.
The camera goes to market later this year. Sign me up for one, please!
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Scientists Create First Memory Expansion for Brain
After studying the chemical interactions that allow short-term learning and memorization in rats, a group of scientists lead by Dr. Theodore Berger—from the University of South California’s Viterbi School of Engineering—have built a prosthetic chip that uses electrodes to enhance and expand their memory abilities. The chip is capable of storing neural signals, basically functioning as an electronic memory, allowing rats to learn more and keep it in the devices.
Dr. Berger’s description is almost frightening:
“Flip the switch on, and the rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget […] These integrated experimental modeling studies show for the first time that with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time identification and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive mnemonic processes.
The team’s experiments—which have been in a paper called “A Cortical Neural Prosthesis for Restoring and Enhancing Memory”—could lead to the development of devices that may help people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, stroke or other brain injuries. In fact, they are already working on the next step: Reproduce the same result in monkeys.
As someone who has had family affected by Alzheimer and other diseases, I really hope they succeed. As someone who would like to have the entire IMDB in his brain, I really hope they succeed too. [PR Newswire]
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High ResolutionJapanese artist Iori Tomita transforms the scientific technique of preserving and dying organisms into an art form with this series entitled New World Transparent Specimens. The images give us an breathtaking look at the inner workings of underwater life.
The process Tomita goes through is extremely extensive. First, he removes the scales and skin that have been preserved in formaldehyde. He then soaks the creatures in a stain that dyes the cartilage blue. Tomita uses a digestive enzyme called trypsin, along with a host of other chemicals, to break down the proteins and muscles, halting the process just at the moment they become transparent. The bones are stained with red dye, and the specimen is preserved in a jar of glycerin. From start to finish, the entire production takes about five months to a year.(via fruitfulpetrichor)
do i dare disturb the universe?
