HELL EXPLAINED
BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

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

A kid called up his mom from his college and asked her for some money, because he ran out of it.

Mom said, "'Sure, sweetie. I'll send you some money. You also left your calculus book here when you visited 2 weeks ago. Do you want me to send that up too?"

"Uh, oh yeah, OK," responded the kid.

So Mom wrapped the book along with the checks up in a package, kissed Dad goodbye, and went to the post office to mail the money and the book.

When she gets back, Dad asked, "Well how much did you give the boy this time?"

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

"Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."

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:

Al Capp, creator of the famous comic strip Lil Abner, was one day
invited to a university to give a lecture to the students. Before
he could begin speaking to the large group assembled in the auditorium,
an unkempt-looking student at the back shouted a vulgar word at him.
The word hung in the air as an uncomfortable silence lasted but a
moment... Capp, keeping his cool, quipped, "Now that you've given us
your name, what IS your question?"

A psychology student was to help a professor in conducting a personality
test. The room was set up with various props in order to move through
the assessment quickly. The first person to enter the room started
through the test.

"How does this glass of water look to you?"
Person 1: It is half empty.
Student writes 'pessimist' in his report.

Person 2 enters the room. "How does this glass of water look to you?"

Person 2: It is half full.
Student writes 'optimist' in his report.

Person 3 enters the room. "How does this glass of water look to you?"

The local high school has a policy that the parents must call the school
if a student is to be absent for the day. Kelly (name changed to protect
the guilty), deciding to skip school and go to the mall with her friends
waited until her parents had left for work and called the school herself.
This is the actual conversation of the telephone call.

Kelly: "Hi, I'm calling to report that Kelly so-in-so is unable to make
it to school today because she is ill.

Secretary at high school: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I'll note her
absence. Who is this calling?"

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class.

"In English," he explained, "a double negative forms a positive. In
some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative."

"However," the professor continued, "there is no language wherein a
double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up. "Yeah, right."

TEACHER: In this box, I have a 10-foot snake.
SAMMY: You can't fool me, Teacher... snakes don't have feet.

TEACHER: How can you prevent diseases caused by biting insects?
JOSE: Don't bite any.

TEACHER: Ellen, give me a sentence starting with "I".
ELLEN: I is...
TEACHER: No, Ellen. Always say, "I am."
ELLEN: All right... "I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

An Engineering Student, a Physics Student, and a
Mathematics student were each given $150 dollars
and were told to use that money to find out exactly
how tall a particular hotel was.

All three ran off, extremely keen on how to do this.
The physics student went out, purchased some
stopwatches, a number of ball bearings, a calculator,
and some friends. He had them all time the drop of
ball bearings from the roof, and he then figured out
the height from the time it took for the bearings to
accelerate from rest until they impacted with the
sidewalk.

A professor was giving a big test one day to his students. He
handed out all of the tests and went back to his desk to wait
Once the test was over the students all handed the tests back in.
The professor noticed that one of the students had attached a
$100 bill to his test with a note saying "A dollar per point." The
next class the professor handed the tests back out. This student
got back his test and $64 change.