charles in charge

I must preface this entry by saying that the following piece is not new to me. I have received this email numerous times in the past and, after reading it, sent the expected "lol" and moved on.
Today, for some reason, I actually thought about it.
I blame the bfe; lunch with a physicist has that effect.
This email is usually titled "Physics of Hell", even though it is referring to a gas law used in chemistry.
Today, after the afore-mentioned (celebration of his fourth-decade birthday) lunch with the bfe, I realized something: the following is most likely a myth or urban legend.
No! Say it ain't so!
I wish I could. Perhaps if they had referred to the correct gas law, I would have accepted it as gospel.
I guess it just shows you how easy it is to read something in a hurry and not comprehend what is actually written.
So, here is the piece for your enjoyment. I will follow it with a brief discussion of the gas laws which should have been used and why "Boyle's Law" was an incorrect choice.

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HELL EXPLAINED
BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

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. {This is an erroneous application of this law, as I will soon explain.}

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 is another erroneous application of Boyle's Law, as I will explain.}

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+.
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If this "student" did truly exist and did truly write the above essay and did truly receive an "A+" grade, then the "teacher" must have been too consumed with laughter to recognize the errors.
Boyle's Law concerns the indirect relationship between volume and pressure. Specifically, the Law states that for an ideal gas at constant temperature and constant amount of gas, changes in volume are indirectly related to changes in pressure.
In GOB chemistry, this law is called the Law of Respiration.
Breathing?
Exactly. Consider the lungs, flexible vessels for the containment and processing of air. The volume, or amount of air which the lungs can hold, is controlled by the placement of the diaphragm (the muscle which separates the thoracic and abdominal cavities of the body).
As the diaphragm contracts and elevates, the lungs are compressed, decreasing their volume...and increasing the pressure of the gas within. This action results in air (containing carbon dioxide created during metabolic processes) being expelled from the lungs. Immediately after, the diaphragm relaxes and lowers, allowing the lungs to expand and increase their volume. This results in a decrease of gas pressure within the lungs, allowing air (containing oxygen needed for metabolic processes) to be inhaled.
Thank God we don't have to think about making that happen, right? Over and over and over, every second of every day, inhale, exhale. Thank God we have a portion of our brain dedicated to that mundane task as well as others of its ilk, like the heart beating.
But I digress.
My point is this: Boyle's Law was not the correct choice for the introduction of the student's essay. Perhaps the composer of the farce was familiar with Boyle's Law and thought its presence would lend some credence to the tale.
I'd be willing to wager that the majority of my students will remember that law, if only in part because of my in-class demonstration of it in action. The power of visual demonstrations!
So, which of the gas laws would be the better choice?
Well, I would recommend Charles' Law for that first part of the tale, when the speaker is talking of gas cooling as it expands. In other words, the talk was of temperature and volume. For Charles' Law, also known as the Law of Volumes, the premise can be stated thusly: for an ideal gas at constant pressure and constant amount of gas, changes in volume are directly related to changes in temperature. In short, as the temperature increases, the volume also increases.
However, a different law is needed for the second part of the emailed tale, the part which proposes to present the student's essay. There, the "student" writes that the "temperature and pressure...stay the same as the volume changes with the addition of souls. Boyle's Law is certainly NOT the correct choice, but Charles' Law would not fit this change of parameters, either.
No, the best choice would have been Avogadro's Law. If the temperature and pressure are both constant, then volume changes directly as the amount of ideal gas changes.
How does any of this relate to souls???
Well, if we assume that souls are spirits and behave comparably to ideal gases, then we can assume that Charles' Law and Avogadro's Law can be applied to the student's essay.
In accordance with Avogadro's Law, we have the number of departed souls (ideal gas molecules) increasing continually, leading to the continual expansion of the volume of Hell (vessel holding the gas). However, given the number of departed souls over the entire lifespan to date of Earth, we can assume that current change in number of souls is very small compared to the number of souls already in Hell, so the expansion can be regarded as very small at this point in time.
Likewise, if the volume of Hell is only nominally changing at this stage in the game, then the temperature and pressure would also only have slight variations as time proceeds and more departed souls enter. In other words, any decreases in pressure or increases in temperature for current increases in departed souls are fairly negligible.

Maybe the universe is Hell. We all know the universe is slowly and continually expanding. We all know that the space outside of our atmosphere is frightfully cold and basically a vacuum of constant pressure.
Perhaps space is Hell and the many stars are the departed souls...