|
WHAT
A FALLING STONE MEANS
The
laws of physics are mathematical
expressions of how the universe
operates
The
laws of physics are mathematical
expressions of how the universe
operates. The events taking place in the
universe and the relations between them
and the laws ‘governing’ the
universe have drawn the attention of
people from ancient times.
Scientists
have tried to explain whatever takes
place in the universe, such as the
movements of heavenly objects, tides and
the floating of ships on the water.
However, according to the thinkers of
ancient Greece, scientists had to
concentrate on man himself, rather than
on the natural world. They believed that
natural phenomena and the laws governing
them could be explained through mental
operations like deduction and analogical
reasoning. The Qur’an calls the
attention of human beings to the Divine
manifestations on creatures such as the
honeybee, ant, gnat and spider, and
invites them to reflect on and study
phenomena like the movement of air, the
alternation of day and night and the
seasons, and the movements of heavenly
bodies.
The
importance the Qur’an gives to the
study of natural events inspired Muslim
scientists to undertake investigations
using observation and the experimental
method-long before these came into use
in Europe.
How
did science pass to Europe?
Science
passed to Europe through the two
centuries of the Crusades, through the
universities in al-Andalus and Sicily
and the translations made there from
Arabic. This was the main factor behind
the Renaissance in Europe. Building on
(without ever openly acknowledging) the
works of Muslim scientists, Western
scientists led the way to the birth of
modern science. Until correct
conclusions were reached about phenomena
through observation and experimental
methods, the assertions of the ancient
Greek philosophers had been accepted as
the basic laws of nature. For example,
it had been asserted as true without
question from the time of Aristotle that
the speed of an object’s falling is
proportionate to its weight. However,
the experiments done by Galileo and
Newton proved this to be false. Those
experiments showed that-so long as the
resistance of air is negligible in
proportion to the weight of the object
and its vertical cross-sectional
area-the unhindered movement of an
object on the earth is not dependent on
its mass. This means that objects of
different weight dropped from the same
point reach earth at the same time. Such
developments in physics led scientists
to approve observation and experiment as
a basic rule in establishing natural
facts. It was the job of scientists to
try to discover the laws and basic
truths prevalent in the universe through
observation and experiment-empirical
methods- while it was the task of
philosophers to reflect on and comment
on them. In other words, in order to
have true conclusions about the universe
and the events taking place in it, we
had to discard all of our preconceptions
about them and study nature through
empirical methods and then comment on
the natural events and the relations
between them.
To
have a clearer understanding of modern
science
In
order to have a clearer understanding of
modern science and what it can give us
of truth about the universe, let us
consider the law of general gravity,
which is an undeniably established
scientific fact:
Various
observations and experiments have shown
that any two objects attract each other
or exert force upon each other
proportionately to their masses and in
inverse proportion to the square of the
distance between them.
The
force of attraction or gravity is the
force which is in effect in events such
as the falling of an object and the
revolving of the earth around the sun.
Science presents gravity as if it were
the cause of such events. However, what
we call the force of gravitation is only
a notion which we use to explain those
events. That is, there is an attraction
observed between objects. In order to
explain this attraction, we give it a
name like the law or force of
gravitation and then think that we have
explained the event of attraction.
Science
does not know the nature of what it
calls the force of gravitation but,
starting from the assertion that we have
already successfully explained many
events whose causes were unknown in the
past, claims that it will be explained
in the future. Nevertheless, science is
unable to explain the real cause of all
the events in the universe. What science
in fact does is, starting from the
recurrence of an event under the same
conditions, to make a generalization and
call it a law. Then it proceeds to
assert that the same event will take
place again and again under the same
conditions. For example, after observing
the falling of objects thrown into the
air, it makes a generalization that all
objects thrown into the air fall, and
then expresses this event of falling by
a mathematical formula.
It
can serve as a simple example to see how
science works to calculate and state
beforehand how long it takes for an
object thrown into the air with a
certain force and at a certain angle to
fall and at what distance it falls.
Since events take place in a
cause-and-effect series, knowing what
effect or event will take place in the
next step does not require understanding
why it takes place in that way.
Therefore, although we suppose that the
law of gravity will be understood as,
say, dependent on an exchange between
certain particles or the obliquity of
spatial time, it will nevertheless
remain unexplained through scientific
methods why such an exchange takes place
or why the spatial time becomes oblique
and why that exchange or obliquity
occurs according to certain mathematical
formulations and thereby objects attract
each other. In addition to the fact that
why objects attract each other remains
unknown, it is also a mystery (and a
wonder) that this event of attraction
takes place according to a mathematical
formula. Because of our familiarity with
the events taking place in nature, we
ignore the important fact that every
thing, every event in nature is a
miracle. In order to see why the event
of gravitation is a dazzling miracle, we
should consider it more closely:
How
does the law of gravity work and what
does it mean?
As
an example to understand the law of
gravity, let us consider the falling of
a stone dropped (and then allowed to
fall unhindered) from a certain high
point. Left unhindered, that stone will
realize a certain trajectory as the
result of gravity affecting it. It will
move faster and faster and finally hit
the ground. How the stone will
accelerate, how long it will take it to
reach the ground and how it will move at
every second of its trajectory depends
on the stone’s distance from the
center of the earth, the mass of the
earth and the constant of gravity. This
means that the stone does not move at
random, rather each of its movements
during its fall is calculable by
mathematical formulas. This is an
extremely regular movement. From this we
inevitably conclude that if the stone
does this movement of falling by itself,
without an agent directing or
determining its trajectory, then the
stone must know accurately the constant
of gravity, the mass of the earth and
its distance from the center of the
earth at each moment of its trajectory
and then move in conformity with that
knowledge. Whoever has a bit of
intelligence will not attribute to the
stone itself such a trajectory, simple
in appearance but extremely complex in
reality. Indeed, the falling of a stone
is so complex a movement that during it
all the objects in the universe, every
thing with a certain mass, exerts on it
certain force of attraction and the
stone moves under the influence of all
those forces. (Here we do not consider
other essential forces such as the
electro-magnetic and nuclear ones, which
have determining effect on the movement
of things. Expressed, again, with
certain mathematical formulas, these
forces make the movements in the
universe even more complex.) That is, in
order to determine its trajectory, the
stone must know the exact distance
between itself and each of about 1080
particles in the universe, calculate
accurately at each moment of its
trajectory the force of the attraction
exerted on it by each of those particles
according to the mathematical formula of
gravity-a force which changes every
moment-and focus all those forces to a
single point in consideration of the
direction of each. Let alone a stone,
even the most advanced computer the size
of the universe could not accomplish
that. For the position of each of the
particles with respect to the stone
changes at every moment during its fall.
Thus, the simplest-seeming movement in
the universe like the falling of a stone
requires comprehensive knowledge and
mastery of an infinite number of
interrelated processes.
Any
event taking place in any part of the
universe has connection with each of the
particles in the universe and the whole
of the universe itself.
Since
any event taking place in any part of
the universe has connection with each of
the particles in the universe and the
whole of the universe itself, only one
who has perfect knowledge of each of
those particles and the universe as a
whole, one who sees the whole of the
universe with each particle in it, can
determine and direct all the movements
in the universe. Also, since the law of
gravity and all the other physical laws
are the same and have the same
uniformity throughout the whole of the
universe, the one who makes these laws
operative in the whole of the universe
must be an absolutely powerful one, who
dominates each and every thing therein.
Otherwise, each atom in the universe
must have an eye seeing the whole of the
universe at the same time, know the
position, mass, electrical charge, in
short, all the physical features, of
each particle in the universe, be aware
of all the physical laws and obey the
laws itself originated.
Every
event and every thing in the universe is
interrelated to every other and whatever
takes place in the universe takes place
according to certain laws. Therefore, it
is impossible for even the smallest,
most insignificant-seeming event to take
place without one with an absolute,
perfect knowledge of the universe with
all its particles and an absolute power
governing it. Said Nursi expresses this
fact as follows:
If
the existence and operation of the
universe is not attributed to God
Almighty; then it requires admitting
that each particle has the attributes of
the Necessarily Existent Being, and that
each particle should both dominate and
be dominated by all other particles.
Again, each particle should have an
all-encompassing will and knowledge, for
the existence of a single thing is
dependent on all things and one who does
not own the universe cannot rule a
single particle.
After
explaining how complex a phenomenon
gravitation is, we can go a little
further to see the real cause of that
phenomenon. The relation sensed between
the fall of a stone and the rotation of
the moon around the world in a fixed
orbit led Newton to discover the law of
gravity. Ever since this law received a
general welcome, the cause of the
falling down of an object thrown into
the air has unquestionably been accepted
as gravity. However, it is not necessary
that the real cause of this movement is
the force of the attraction of the earth
or the existence of another material
cause.
Consider
this:
Let
us imagine some animate beings living on
a two-dimensional table. These living
beings are aware of only the table on
which they live and completely unaware
of the three-dimensional world around
them. Someone from the three-dimensional
world fires at the table in equal
frequencies and makes holes at equal
distance from each other. Seeing the
holes at equal distances, the animate
beings living completely unaware of the
three-dimensional world will inevitably
conclude that each hole causes another
one to be made. Whereas it is some other
firing from the outside world who made
the holes.
What
do you know about the reality of
causality?
This
is how the scientists attributing every
thing and event in the universe to the
law of causality think about the working
of the universe. It is questionable
whether the attraction of an object
toward another near it (for example, the
attraction of a falling stone toward the
ground) is because of the objects
themselves or there is some other source
forcing the objects to such a movement.
(The event of attraction is the simplest
of the events occurring in the universe.
You may consider how a honeybee makes
honey or a cow gives milk, events which
contain a much greater number of
physical interactions, chemical
reactions and cause and effect.) In
short, since the movement of an object
according to the law of gravity is one
each moment of which is mathematically
described and requires as many masses
and distances as the articles in the
universe and the distances among them to
be known in their mutual, complex
relations, there must be One Who is the
All-Knowing. This One must also have an
absolute will to choose and assign for
each event a law out of innumerable
ones. The uniformity of the law, that
is, all the laws being prevalent
throughout the universe, calls for the
unity of that All-Knowing and
All-Willing One, and the obedience of
all things, small or great, to those
laws demonstrate that that One is also
the All-Powerful. Again, the
unchangeability or stability of the laws
and the magnificent, unchanging order
and harmony of the universe show that
that One is Self-Subsistent and the
All-Subsisting. That means it is that
All-Knowing, All-Willing, All-Powerful,
Self-Subsistent and All-Subsisting,
Single One Who causes a stone to fall.
For no one and nothing in the universe
has the knowledge, will and power
absolutely necessary for the falling of
a stone. Every thing and event in the
universe is too complex and magnificent
for any material cause to bring it
about. There is then no way for man
other than to admit and recognize the
existence and Unity of God.
|
|
