The following is one of Dr. Schalmbaugh's Final Test questions for May 1997--Dr. Schalmbaugh, University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, is known for asking questions such as this on his final exams:

Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II Final Exam Question:
Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with truth.

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, 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, lets 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 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.
Case 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.
Case 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 Theresa Banyan during my freshman year, "it will be a cold night 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 case 2 cannot be true.
Thus, hell is exothermic.


The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

"USELESS FACTS"
A collection of useless facts that are interesting:
*Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.
*If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
*Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
*The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
*Ballroom dancing is a major at Brigham Young University.
*Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic (the language of the ancient Bible) did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible -- in many places -- refers to "40 days," they meant many days.
*No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
*Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
*Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
*There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
*Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
*"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
*The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
*The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
*The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
*Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fish was named Livingston.
*The 'y' in signs reading "Ye Olde ..." is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'. The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y".
*The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
*The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
*The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
*The little bags of netting for gas lanterns (called 'mantles') are radioactive -- so much so that they will set of an alarm at a nuclear reactor.
*Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots
*Each unit on the Richter Scale is equivalent to a power factor of about 32. So a 6 is 32 times more powerful than a 5! Though it goes to 10, 9 is estimated to be the point of total tetonic destruction (2 is the smallest that can be felt unaided.)
*Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.
*Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize *this* was the day of the changeover.
*Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
*The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
*Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."
*In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."
*Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."
*Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr. Scott".
*Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
*More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
*The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life."
*The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war.
*A portion of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace and the red portion is flown in war time.
*Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
*The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
*Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
*If you are locked in a completely sealed room, you will die of carbon dioxide poisoning first before you will die of oxygen deprivation.
*Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
*The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke someone's eye out.
*Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister. Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.
*A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
*The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
*Certain frogs can be frozen solid then thawed, and continue living.
*The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
*Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
*Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
*Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.
*Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

~~~
These are the nominees for the Chevy Nova Award. This is given out in honor of the GM's fiasco in trying to market this car in Central and South America. "no va" means, of course, in spanish, "it doesn't go".

1. The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"

2. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."

5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label.
Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.

6. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

7. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato"(la papa).

8. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

10. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

11. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar"(to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"

12. When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

~~~

There's a little fellow named Junior who hangs out at Tim Alley's Grocery Store. The owner Tim doesn't know what Junior's problem is, but the boys like to tease him. They say he is two bricks shy of a load, or two pickles shy of a barrel. To prove it, sometimes they offer Junior his choice between a nickel and a dime.
He always takes the nickel, they say, because it's bigger. One day after Junior grabbed the nickel, Tim got him off to one side and said, "Junior, those boys are making fun of you. They think you don't know the dime is worth more than the nickel. Are you grabbing the nickel because it's bigger, or what?"
Junior said, "Well, if I took the dime, they'd quit doing it!"

~~~

THIS IS A GREAT ONE!

A butcher is working, and really busy. He notices a dog in his shop and shoos him away. Later, he notices the dog is back again. He walks over to the dog, and notices the dog has a note in his mouth. The butcher takes the note, and it reads, "Can I have 12 sausages and a leg of lamb, please."
The butcher looks, and lo and behold, in the dog's mouth, there is a ten dollar bill. So the butcher takes the money, puts the sausages and lamb in a bag, and places it in the dog's mouth. The butcher is very impressed, and since it's closing time, he decides to close up shop and follow the dog.
So, off he goes. The dog is walking down the street and comes to a crossing. The dog puts down the bag, jumps up and presses the crossing button. Then he waits patiently, bag in mouth, for the lights to change. They do, and he walks across the road, with the butcher following. The dog then comes to a bus stop, and starts looking at the timetable. The butcher is in awe at this stage. The dog checks out the times, and sits on one of the seats to wait for the bus. Along comes a bus. The dog walks to the front of the bus, looks at the number, and goes back to his seat. Another bus comes. Again the dog goes and looks at the number, notices it's the right bus, and climbs on. The butcher, by now open-mouthed, follows him onto the bus. The bus travels thru town and out to the suburbs. Eventually the dog gets up, moves to the front of the bus, and standing on his hind legs, pushes the button to stop the bus. The dog gets off, groceries still in his mouth, and the butcher still following. They walk down the road, and the dog approaches a house. He walks up the path, and drops the groceries on the step. Then he walks back down the path, takes a big run, and throws himself -whap!- against the door. He goes back down the path, takes another run, and throws himself -whap!- against the door again!
There's no answer at the door, so the dog goes back down the path, jumps up on a narrow wall, and walks along the perimeter of the garden.He gets to a window, and bangs his head against it several times. He walks back, jumps off the wall, and waits at the door. The butcher watches as a big guy opens the door, and starts laying into the dog, really yelling at him.
The butcher runs up and stops the guy. "What the heck are you doing? This dog is a genius. He could be on TV, for God's sake!"
To which the guy responds, "Clever, my ass. This is the second time this week he's forgotten his key!"

~~~

Young man Murphy applied for an engineering position at an Irish firm based in Dublin. An American applied for the same job and both applicants having the same qualifications were asked to take a test by the Department manager.
Upon completion of the test both men only missed one of the questions. The manager went to Murphy and said, "Thank you for your interest, but we've decided to give the American the job."
Murphy: "And why would you be doing that? We both got 9 questions correct. This being Ireland and me being Irish I should get the job!"
Manager: "We have made our decision not on the correct answers, but on the question you missed."
Murphy: "And just how would one incorrect answer be better than the other?"
Manager: "Simple. The American put down on question # 5, 'I don't know.' You put down 'Neither do I.'"

~~~

If Brussels sprouts are sprouts, what do they grow up to be?

Brussels sprouts refuse to grow up. This hideous life form has baffled science for years. Children and dogs, being sensitive to evil, refuse to eat Brussels sprouts. The Latin name for the Brussels sprout is Vegetus Infernus or "leafy thing from hell." The first botanist to identify the sprout said it came from the nether regions. An inept lab assistant changed this to the Netherlands, and this was further corrupted to Brussels. As to their being sprouts, they have been sprouting from harmless broccoli, which leads me to believe they might be a type of fungus. Whatever they are, they don't grow up, and neither will you if you eat them

~~~

HOLMES AND WATSON GO CAMPING

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. As they lay down for the night, Holmes said: "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson said: "I see millions and millions of stars."
Holmes: "And what does that tell you?"
Watson: "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.
Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small.
Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"
Holmes: "Watson, you idiot. Somebody stole our tent."

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