A group of terrorists burst into the conference room at the 
Ramada Hotel, where the American Bar Association was 
holding its Annual Conventions. More than a hundred lawyers 
were taken as hostages. The terrorist leader announced that 
unless their demands were met, they would release one 
lawyer every hour. 

The nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. 
Infected people with  the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring 
around the rosey"), these sores would smell very badly so common folks 
would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that
it would cover the smell of the sores ("a pocket full of posies").   
Furthermore, people who died from the plague would be burned so as to 
reduce the possible spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall 
down").

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.  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.

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, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell
freezes over.

It was not revealed what grade the student got.

Tad Cook
tad@ssc.com