Article 32630 of talk.origins:
From: drory@buphyk.bu.edu (Alon Drory)
Subject: Heaven hotter then Hell
Date: 1 Jun 1994 19:17:37 GMT
Organization: Boston University Physics Department
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <2simsh$gq9@news.bu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: buphyk.bu.edu

The  posts on the thermal state of Venus have reminded me of this little
piece of work, which was published as a letter in the journal "Applied
Optics", vol. 11, n.8, A 14, 1972. No author was given. Apparently this
piece was privately circulated in some physics departments until
somebody (from Harvard, I think) decided to publish it. Hope you enjoy
it. 

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The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
authority is the Bible, 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 the earth does
from the sun, and in addition seven times seven (forty nine) times as
much as the earth does from the sun, or 50 times in all. The light we
receive from the moon is 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 looses 50 times as much heat as the
earth by radiation. Using the Stephan-Boltzmann fourth power law for
radiation, we have
                   (H/E)^4 = 50
where E is the absolute temperature of the earth, 300 K (27 C). this
gives H the absolute temperature of Heaven, as 798 K (525 C).

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 (or sulfur) means that its temperature must
be at or below the boiling point, 444.6 C (above that point, it would be
a vapor, not a lake).

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

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-- 
   -  Alon 
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   Furious activity is no substitute for understanding
                                                       -- H. H. Williams