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From: HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Heaven is hotter than Hell.
Message-ID: <12329@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Oct-83 14:55:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12329
Posted: Wed Oct  5 14:55:33 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Oct-83 07:26:34 EDT
Lines: 24

From:  Charles Hedrick <HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA>

I hate to ruin people's jokes, but Isaiah 30:26 does not refer to heaven.
It is clearly talking about earth in that great day when the Assyrians
are finally defeated.  We have several options open to us.  The easiest
is to assume that this is being spoken metaphorically.  Since this is
obviously not in the spirit of the original comment, I propose the
following two alternatives:
  - it is not said that the total radiation increases, only that the
	mentioned heavenly objects become brighter.  The term bright
	normally refers to visible light.  Perhaps the nature of their
	spectrum alters so that only the visible light increases.
	In the previous verse it is said "on the day when the forts
	of your enemies are captured and their people are killed,
	streams of water will flow from every mountain and every hill".
	This seems to set an upper bound of 100 C on the temperature.
  - since the Assyrians are no longer with us, the situation described
	in this passage must already have happened.  Thus it is clear
	that the current brightness of the sun is 7 times what it was
	in earlier parts of the Bible.  Perhaps this explains why
	science and technology suddenly started rising in the period
	of the Greeks, after millenia of slow progress in the bronze and
	iron ages:  suddenly there was enough light for people to read!
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