Heaven Hotter than Hell

Everyone has seen the first calculations, they can be found on google fairly easy.

The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is the Bible, Isaiah 30:26 reads, 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 fifty times in all. The light we receive from the moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature of heaven: 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. In other words, heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for radiation

(H/E)⁴ = 50

where E is the absolute temperature of the earth, 300°K (273+27). This gives H the absolute temperature of heaven, as 798° absolute (525°C).

The exact temperature of hell cannot be computed but it must be less than 444.6°C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8: But the fearful and unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, which is 444.6°C. (Above that point, it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

We have then, temperature of heaven, 525°C (977°F). Temperature of hell, less than 445°F). Therefore heaven is hotter than hell.

But I, at least, have never seen a response published in the same time-period.

In Applied Optics (1972, 11 A14) there appeared a calculation of the respective temperatures of Heaven and Hell. That of Heaven was computed by substituting the values given in Isaiah 30 26 [1] in the Stefan-Boltzman radiation law, so that (H/E)⁴ = 50, where E, the absolute temperature of the Earth, is 300ºK, whence the temperature of Heaven, H, is 798ºK or 525ºC. This is hard to find fault with.

The assessment of the temperature of Hell stands, I suggest, on less firm ground. As authority we use the data provided in Revelations 21 8 [2], so that the temperature of Hell seems to be 444.6ºC–the temperature at which liquid sulfur is in equilibrium with its vapour–a temperature indeed which is sufficiently reliable to be used in the secondary calibration of pyrometers.

Now this last reckoning fails to follow the argument through. 444.6ºC is the temperature at which liquid sulfur is in equilibrium with its vapour at normal atmospheric pressure. Have we any data as to the pressure likely to be found in Hell?

The answer is "Yes". A nineteenth century mathematician has already provided the groundwork for Us [3] and we may feel confident that by the year 2000 the total number of the damned will be at least 29,422,641,251,519,917,000 souls. Yet the area of the valley of Gehinnom [4] is only 7,000,000 square meters.

We can now apply these figures in the Ideal Gas Equation to calculate what the pressure will be in the valley of Gehinnom. Since surely some souls must have been damned since 1877 [5], the pressure can only have increased since these calculations were made and the equilibrium point on the phase diagram of sulfur must have shifted still further, so that if we can show that at a temperature of 525ºC sulfur would still be liquid at the pressure calculated (which is a minimum value, remember). Hell (Gehinnom) is now cooler than Heaven.

Certain corrections must be applied first, however.

1. Neiht based his calculation on a date of creation of 1658 + 2326 - 1877 = 2107 BC (minimum). Counting generations in the Bible gives a date for the Creation of 4004 BC. However, atomic dating has shown that Olduvai man is at least 2 × 10⁶ years old [6].

2. We should use a Fibonacci series for the expansion, not a simple doubling series. [7] The ancient Jewish laws against inbreeding also act in the same direction. [8]

3. By a fortunate coincidence, the effects of 1 and 2 cancel each other exactly. [9]

4. The human body is not an ideal gas, but

5. A good deal of it is gaseous at 525ºC, and in any case,

6. It could well be that at very great pressures the external pressure may well exceed the pressure of electromagnetic repulsion, when different "gas" laws would apply. This merely explains how the Lord works in fitting so large a number of damned souls into so small a space [10] and it need not be quantitative.

In the calculation the following assumptions are made:

1. The average height can be taken as one meter. This seems a fair figure between the newborn babe and the fullgrown man.

2. The average space needed is about 30 cm × 20 cm. It seems unlikely that any closer packing could be achieved. Neiht uses a figure of 1/20 cubic meters per person, which is nearly identical with my independent assessment. Mine allows a neat cancellation, later.

3. I have assumed that not more than two layers of damned persons can be accommodated, since otherwise those in the middle layers would escape the full rigours of Hell.

So that,

The volume available in Gehenna is 60 × 10⁶ × 2 m³ and

The original volume of the damned is 0.06 × 29.422641 × 10¹⁸m³

Then, at constant temperature (which we assume, taking equilibrium)

P₁V₁ = P₂V₂ or P₂ = P₁V₁/V₂

Substituting,

(1)

P₂ = [29 × 6 × 10¹⁶] / [2 × 6 × 10⁷] = 14.5 × 10⁹ atmospheres

Now let us see what pressure is needed to liquefy sulfur vapour at 525ºC.

We have, using the Clausius-Cleypeyron equation in its integrated form,

Log P = 7.43287 - 3268.2 / T

where P = pressure in mm Hg

and T = the elevated boiling point in ºK,

so that

Log P = 7.43287 - (3268.2/798) = 3.3373813

whence,

(2)

P = 2174.607 mm Hg = 2.86 atmospheres

(1) is so much greater than (2) that Revelations 21 8 indicates a temperature very considerably higher than 525ºC.

Thus, Hell is hotter than Heaven (which remains deucedly hot).

The math does check out, and most of the assumptions are reasonable. Unfortunately, even though he sticks to the point for the most point, he seems to assume that sinners bodies, rather than one's incorporeal soul go to hell. But, unless we've been burying a heck of a lot of saints, sinners bodies tend to stay in the ground where they are buried. So the whole argument is based on the assumption that the intangible soul can change the pressure in a given volume, which, unfortunately, is indemonstrable.

Nice try, good luck next time!