IJMC - The Temperature of Heaven and Hell

As most everyone on this list should know, I'm not the world's biggest 
Christian. But I'm wondering after this one. If you can prove the 
temperature of a place, does that mean it exists? In sending out today's 
post, am I proving that Heaven and Hell are more than mythical? Too 
heavy for me, I'm going to go have lunch.                          -dave






The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed.

Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall
be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be
sevenfold, as the light of seven days."  Thus Heaven receives from the
Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49)
times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all.  The
light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive
from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on
Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is
just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50
times as much heat as the Earth by radiation.  Using the
Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the
absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ...

[However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ...
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone."  A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature
must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C.

We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.

              -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972