No idea if it is true but it is too good not to share 🤣

[MarkusWinter]

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry midterm, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

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, which is unlikely. 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+.

[samRowlands]

That is brilliant, I wish I had a mind like that.

[andyb]

That was not the plot twist I was expecting

[Karen]

Somehow I kind of doubt that could have been written during an in-class midterm by someone studying science or engineering in a general chem or PChem class!

• Karen

[Goeffie]

AI answer

[bgrommes]

@Goeffie

AI answer

I don’t think so. Not in AI-speak, way too clever, and I’m pretty sure this has been circulating for a few years and that I first saw it before the LLM craze.

As to whether it would have been accepted as an answer on an actual exam, it depends on the professor’s objective. If it was to see if student understood the concept and/or could approach it outside the box, I would give it an A+. If the objective is to say only what one can objectively know about a thing, it probably gets an F, although I’d make it into a C- for admirable creativity and wit.

It is one of those test questions I used to despise as a student because my first thought was always, what is the prof fishing for anyway? I can’t give a factual, grounded answer, so how do they want to be pandered to?

[MarkusWinter]

I specialised in Biochemistry during my advanced studies. The Prof was known from his lectures to have an eidetic memory. To get into the required practical course you had to pass an entrance exam - 20 places for 220+ people competing.

The last question was “What was Mr. Alzheimer’s first name?” - which annoyed the heck out of me as I have a crap memory for data. So I wrote: “Which one? There are tens of thousands Mr. Alzheimer. The question is too imprecise.”

I got the point.

I expect he did too.

[jmadren]

I would have not given you the point, citing “Your answer is too imprecise.” “Tens of thousands” is way too many for such a rare name. If not for the disease named after one such individual, most people would never have heard of it.

[Rick.A]

I’m not sure, I need more data. What’s the average mass of an adult soul?