1) The Nobel Prize, the Universe, and the Qur’an.2) Solitude
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In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"
Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah
As-Salaam Alaykum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakaatuh
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1) The Nobel Prize, the Universe, and the Qur’an
The amazing discovery that our universe is in a state of accelerating expansion is what awarded Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. The scientists were part of two independent teams attempting to measure the degree to which the universe’s expansion is decelerating; it was sheer serendipity that they discovered the opposite. To their surprise, the very distant supernovae were fainter than they expected, indicating that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate, not a decreasing one. The importance of their discovery was emphasized by Science magazine more than a decade ago when it recognized it as the greatest breakthrough of 1998.
Their discovery has resurrected the importance of the long abandoned concept of ‘antigravity’. Now, there is a heated race in the international scientific community to understand the physics behind this repulsion force responsible for the accelerating cosmological expansion. Cosmologists attribute this antigravity force to an abstract form of energy they call “dark energy”, and claim it is the most ubiquitous form of energy filling the universe.
Interestingly, in 1917 Einstein theorized a cosmological constant, lambda, to represent the antigravity force required to prevent the universe from collapsing on itself in a “big crunch” due to the gravitational pull of the matter inside it. Einstein’s original general relativity equations of 1915 gave rise to an expanding or contracting universe. Regarding that conclusion as outlandish, Einstein settled for the pre-conceived premise that the universe must be static. Consequently, he manipulated his “free parameter” lambda to ensure that outcome. Later on, when he was convinced of Edwin Hubble’s “redshift” data that proved the expanding universe theory, he scrapped the lambda term from his equations and rejected the ‘antigravity’ concept calling it his “biggest blunder”. Little did he know he was a stone-throw away from one of the grandest discoveries of modern cosmology?
What does all of this have to do with the Qur’an? It may be really surprising for people to know that the Qur’an has mentioned the expanding universe fact more than 1,400 years ago. In chapter 51 verse 47, it reads: “And the Heaven We* constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.” God Almighty is directing attention to the finely crafted universe, its mind-boggling vastness, and that He is the One to expand it.
The ultimate question becomes: How can a book written more than 14 centuries ago accurately describe such an unintuitive phenomenon that was only discovered and confirmed less than a century ago?!
Maybe it’s because that book was revealed by the Creator himself, the One Who built the universe with strength and is expanding it faster and faster.
*This “We” is the plural of majesty and is a reference to the one and only God
Mohamad Saleh Kotob
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