treasures

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

A true story.

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: “Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof.” Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law or some variant. However, one student wrote the following:

“First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls 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 souls 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 religions, you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and 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 in volume in Hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.
So, 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, than the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over!”

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The Famous Camel Joke

How does a chemical engineer calculate the airflow over a camel?
First assume the camel is a sphere…

• You have a favorite pump manufacturer.
• You can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie.
• You can size distillation columns in your head, but need a pencil and paper to figure the tip on a $45 restaurant bill… and think that spending $45 for dinner is exorbitant.
• You see a good design and still have to change it.
• You can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary.
• You know who invented Jell-O.
• The microphone or visual aids at a meeting don’t work and you rush up to the front to fix it.
• You’ve modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven.
• You think “cuddling” is simply an unproductive application of heat exchange.
• You’ve actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
• You’ve ever described your spouse in terms of MTBF (mean time between failure).
• You can name 6 Star Trek episodes.
• You’ve ever considered installing a scrubber on your chimney.
• The only jokes you receive are through e-mail.
• Your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the decimal point in the right place.
• You automatically associate the words “sexy,” “beautiful” and “new butterfly valve.”
• You look forward to Christmas only to put together the kids’ toys.
• You’ve used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than hanging coats and taping ducts.
• Your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies.
• You have any of the following personalized items:
  • Hard hat.
  • Safety goggles.
  • Calculator case.
  • Slide rule.
• You have “Dilbert” comics displayed anywhere in your work area.
• You carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that actually takes five minutes to run.
• You know the direction the water swirls when you flush.
• You’ve ever taken the back off your TV just to see what’s inside.
• A team of you and your co-workers have set out to modify the antenna on the radio in your work area for better reception.
• You thought the concoction ET used to phone home was stupid.
• You cannot write unless the paper has both horizontal and vertical lines.
• You think the value of a book is directly proportionate to the amount of tables, charts and graphs it contains.
• You once burned down the gymnasium with your Science Fair project.
• You think you look rather snappy in a tie and short-sleeve shirt.
• You’d really like to have a T-shirt that says “Chemical Engineers Do It In Fluidized Beds.”
• You’ve ever introduced your kids by the wrong name.
• You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work.
• People hound you for pocket protectors at Halloween time.
• You think that when people around you yawn, its because they didn’t get enough sleep.
• Your spouse hasn’t the foggiest idea what you do at work.
• Your three-year-old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory.
• You and a buddy spend two work days customizing each engineer’s phone ring so that you can tell them apart from anywhere—using cut-up lids from snuff cans and scotch tape. (Ngener)
• You refer to your children as your “pilot units.” (M.J. Potter)
• Your work clothes are almost as old as you are… and so is your car. (M.J. Potter)
• You think of the Carnot cycle every time you turn on your AC unit. (Steve)
• When you look at objects in the distance and think of mean free path. (Steve)
• You explain surface tension to your 10 year old when they ask why you are adding oil to boiling spaghetti. (Steve)
• You have a clock with inverted numbers that runs counter-clock wise in your office and you prefer it that way. (Steve)
• You make your own shampoo! (Steve)
• You pick your girlfriends by their GPA. (Steve)
• You refer to your wife as my.spouse@home.com (L. Stookey)
• You have ever thought about how coffee changes color in the body. (R. Shackelford)
• You read this page for the first time on a Saturday night. (C.T. Lard)
• You try to explain entropy to strangers at your table during casual dinner conversation. (B. Eldredge)
• You actually use FORTRAN… and LIKE it (J. Ramont)
• You have a psychometric chart from a major HVAC vendor hanging above your mantel. (J. Ramont)
• You refer to instruction manuals as “correction” manuals. (J.H. Cox)

CHEMICAL ENGINEER: n. A person who does for profit what a chemist does for fun. See also “Prostitution”

Q: What is the difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer?
A: Oh, about $20 K per year.