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THE
SUB-ATOMIC WORLD AND CREATION
Out
of the three famous papers that Albert
Einstein published in 1905, On a
Heuristic Point of View Concerning the
Production and Transformation of Light
explicitly stated the quantum hypothesis
for electromagnetic radiation, and On
the Movement of Small Particles
Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required
by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat
developed the theory that led to the
establishment of the sub-atomic nature
of matter.
Following
the classical Newtonian physics and
under the spell of developments in
science, physicists of the 19th century
claimed that they could explain every
phenomenon in the universe. E. Dubois
Reymond, at a meeting held in memory of
Leibniz in the Prussian Academy in 1880
was a bit humbler: ‘There have
remained seven enigmas in the universe,
three of which we are unable to solve
yet: The essential nature of matter and
force, the essence and origin of
movement and the nature of
consciousness. The three of the rest
that we can solve although with great
difficulties are: The origin of life,
the order in the universe and the
apparent purpose for it and the origin
of thought and language. As for the
seventh, we can say nothing about it. It
is the individual free will’ (quoted
in A. Adivar, Ilim ve Din (‘Science
and Religion’), Istanbul 1980, p.282).
The
sub-atomic world threw all scientists
into confusion. This world and the ‘quantum
cosmology’ which it introduces, rather
than being a heap or assemblage of
concrete things, is made up of five
elements: the mass of the electron in
the field where an action occurs (M),
the mass of the proton (m), the
electrical charge which these two
elements carry, the energy quanta
(h)-the amount of the energy remaining
during the occurrence of the action-and
the unchanging speed of light (c). These
five elements or the universe can even
be reduced to action or energy waves
traveling through space in tiny packets
or quanta. Since the quanta required for
an action are special to it and exist
independently of the quanta required for
the previous action, it becomes
impossible to predict the exact state of
the universe. If the universe is in t1
state now, it cannot be predicted that
it will be the same in t2 state. Paul
Renteln, assistant professor of physics
at California State University, writes (American
Scientist, Nov.-Dec., 1991, p.508):
Modern
physicists live in two different
worlds. In one world we can
predict the future position and
momentum of a particle if we know
its present position and momentum.
This is the world of classical
physics, including the physics
described by Einstein’s theory
of gravity, the general theory of
relativity. In the second world it
is impossible to predict the exact
position and momentum of a
particle. This is the
probabilistic, subatomic world of
quantum mechanics. General
relativity and quantum mechanics
are the two great pillars that
form the foundation of
20th-century physics, and yet
their precepts assume two
different kinds of universe.
The
real nature of this sub-atomic world and
the events taking place in it make it
impossible to construct a theory to
describe them, because they cannot be
observed. One reason for their
unobservability is that, as Renteln
writes in an attempt to propose a theory
which he calls quantum gravity to
reconcile the two different worlds of
classical and quantum physics, ‘the
events take place at a scale far smaller
than any realm yet explored by
experimental physics. It is only when
particles approach to within about 10-35
meter that their gravitational
interactions have to be described in the
same quantum-mechanical terms that we
adopt to understand the other forces of
nature. This distance is 1024 times
smaller than the diameter of an
atom-which means that the characteristic
scale of quantum gravity bears the same
relation to the size of an atom as an
atom bears to the size of the solar
system. To probe such small distances
would require a particle accelerator
1015 times more powerful than the
proposed Superconducting Supercollider.’
At
the outset of this century, electrons
surrounding the nucleus of an atom were
thought to orbit the nucleus like
planets in a miniature solar system.
However, later researches modified that
view. The electron is now understood to
be more of an energy field cloud
fluctuating around a nucleus.
The
nucleus itself seemed to be composed of
two smaller constituents-protons and
neutrons. However, in the 1960s,
physicists Murray Gell-Mann and George
Zweig confirmed by experiments that
protons and neutrons were made up of
even more elementary particles, which
Gell-Mann called ‘quarks’. Quarks
cannot be seen, not just because they
are too small but also because they do
not seem to be quite ‘all there’.
Quarks
are better described as swirls of
dynamic energy, which means that solid
matter is not, at its fundamental level,
solid at all. Anything you hold in your
hand and which seems solid, is really a
quivering, shimmering, lacy lattice of
energy, pulsating millions of times
every second as billions of fundamental
particles gyrate and spin in an eternal
dance. At its most fundamental level,
everything is energy held together by
forces of incredible power.
This
is not all that makes us unable to
predict even the nearest future of the
universe. According to Werner Heisenberg’s
theories, at just the time when we can
know either where a particle is or how
fast it is traveling, we cannot know
both. This is because the very act of
measuring the particle alters its
behavior. Measuring the particle’s
speed changes its position, and
measuring its position changes its
speed.
However,
the unpredictability in the
sub-atomic world does not change
anything in our everyday,
predictable world. Everything
works according to the basic laws
of classical Newtonian physics. (Groping
in the Light, 1990, pp.
11-17).
Why
is this so and how should our view of
the world and events be?
Scientists
who believe in the existence of God and
His creation of the universe suggest
that creation was not a single event.
That is, God did not create the universe
as a single act and then leave it to
operate according to the laws He
established. Rather, creation is a
continuous act (creatio continua). In
other words, roughly like the movement
of energy or electricity and its
illuminating our world by means of
bulbs, existence continuously comes from
God and returns to and perishes in Him.
Through the manifestation of all His
Names, God continuously creates,
annihilates and re-creates the universe.
Some medieval Muslim scholarly saints
such as Muhy al-Din ibn al-’Arabi and
Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi called
these pairs of acts as the continuous
cycle of coming into existence and
dying. Because of the incredible speed
of this movement, the universe appears
to be uniform and continuous. Rumi
likens this to the fast spinning of a
staff on one end of which there is fixed
a light. When spun at speed, the light
on the end of the staff appears as if a
circle of light.
Unable
to explain the extreme complexity of
existence and the events taking place,
some scientists assert that everything
is in chaos and attribute the formation
of universe as it is to mere chance.
According to them, other universes could
have formed, they simply did not, and
there is no reason that the universe is
the way it is. Given that it is
impossible for even three or more
unconscious things moving at random to
come together by themselves to form even
the simplest entity, it is highly
questionable whether a rational person
can accept that the wonderful order
prevailing in the universe according to
which we can direct our lives can be
explained without attributing it to a
supernatural intellect. A. Cressy
Morrison writes (Man Does Not Stand
Alone, New York, pp.98-9.):
The
proverbial penny may turn up heads
ten times running and the chance
of an eleventh is not expected but
is still one in two, but the
chance of a run of ten heads is
very small. Suppose you have a bag
containing one hundred marbles,
ninety-nine black and one white.
Shake the bag and let out one. The
chance that the first marble out
is the white one is exactly one in
one hundred. Now put the marbles
back and start over again. The
chance of the white coming out is
still one in a hundred, but the
chance of the white coming out
first twice in succession is one
in ten thousand.
Now
try a third time, and the chance
of the white coming out three
times in succession is one hundred
times ten thousand or one in a
billion. Try another time or two
and the figures become
astronomical.
The
results of chance are as closely
bound by law as the fact that two
and two make four.
All
the nearly exact requirements of
life could not be brought about on
one planet at one time by chance.
The size of the earth, the
distance from the sun, the
thickness of the earth’s crust,
the quantity of water, the amount
of carbon dioxide, the volume of
nitrogen, the emergence of man and
his survival-all point to order
out of chaos, to design and
purpose, and to the fact that,
according to the inexorable laws
of mathematics, all these could
not occur by chance simultaneously
on one planet once in a billion
times. It could so occur, but it
did not so occur.
Attributing
the impossible to chance is a trick of
the human mind, its stubborn resistance,
which confuses a theoretical possibility
with the actual facts. For example, it
is possible that the Pacific Ocean has
now changed into milk, but actually it
has not.
As
it is impossible to construct a building
on a flowing stream, God Almighty spread
over the unpredictability of the
sub-atomic world the veil of the speed
of its movement and made the universe
dependent on what we call laws. It is
for this reason that everything in the
outer face of nature works according to
the basic laws of classical Newtonian
physics. However, it is a matter of
controversy between the two schools of Ahl
al-Sunna wa l-Jama’a whether the
universe has a continuous existence
working according to established laws
and things accordingly have perpetual
properties or God continuously creates
the universe and orders each component
of it what to do at every moment. The
followers of the Maturidi School assert
that God created the universe and set it
to operate according to certain laws
which He established, giving each thing
certain properties. For example, fire
burns because God gave it the quality of
burning. Whereas, the followers of the
Ash’ari School maintain that the
universe does not have a perpetual,
established existence and reality. Nor
do things have essential qualities of
themselves. God creates the universe
anew each ‘moment’ and directs it
continuously by ordering each thing to
do what it must do. For example, fire
does not essentially have the quality of
burning, rather, God gives it the order
to burn and it burns. Since according to
the dictates of life in the universe, He
usually orders it to burn, we think that
fire essentially has the quality of
burning.
As
we accept the ‘relative’ truth of
both Newtonian and quantum physics at
the same time, we can also accept the
truth of the views of both schools. As a
matter of belief and as life at the most
fundamental level of existence as in the
sub-atomic world points out, God is
continuously active, creating the
universe anew and directly administering
it. While at practical level, life will
be impossible for us if we do not accept
or assume the uniform continuity or
stability of existence. What would life
be if we were conscious that the sun
would not rise tomorrow morning or that
we might not live a second longer,
although it is theoretically conceivable
both that the sun might not rise
tomorrow and that we might not survive a
second longer?
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