The Discovery of the American Astronomer
In 1929, at the Mount Wilson observatory in California, an American astronomer named Edwin Hubble made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of astronomy. As he observed the stars with a giant telescope, he found that their light was shifted to the red end of the spectrum and that this change was more pronounced the farther away a star was from Earth.
This discovery had an electrifying effect in the world of science , because according to the recognized rules of physics, the spectra of the light beams traveling towards the observation point, tend towards the violet while the spectra of the light beams moving away from the point observation lines tend towards red. During Hubble’s observations, it was found that starlight tended toward red. This meant that they were constantly moving away from us.
Long before, Hubble made another very important discovery: stars and galaxies moved away not only from us, but also from each other. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything deviates from everything else is that the universe “expands” constantly.
To better understand, the universe can be thought of as the surface of a balloon that has points drawn on it being exploded. Just as the points on the surface of a balloon move away from each other as the balloon is inflated, objects in space move away from each other as the universe expands.
Albert Einstein’s Discovery
In fact, this had been theoretically discovered even earlier. Albert Einstein, who is considered the greatest scientist of the century, concluded, after his calculations in theoretical physics, that the universe could not be static.
However, he had put his discovery to rest simply so as not to conflict with the widely recognized static universe model of his time. Later, Einstein was to identify his act as “the biggest mistake of his career”. Later, it became clear from Hubble’s observations that the universe expands.
What importance, then, does the fact that the universe expands have for the existence of the universe? The expansion of the universe implied that, if one could travel back in time, the universe would prove to have originated from a single point. Calculations showed that this “single point” that housed all the matter in the universe should have “zero volume” and “infinite density”. The universe arose from the explosion of this single point with zero volume. This great explosion that marked the beginning of the universe was called the ‘Big Bang’ and the theory started to be called so.
It must be stated that ‘zero volume’ is a theoretical expression used for descriptive purposes. Science can define the concept of ‘nothing’, which is beyond the limits of human understanding, just by expressing it as a point with zero volume ‘. In fact, “a point without volume” means “nothing”. The universe came out of nowhere. In other words, it was created .
The Big Bang Theory in the Quran
The Big Bang theory showed that in the beginning all objects in the universe were one piece and then separated. This fact, revealed by the Big Bang theory, was stated in the Qur’an 14 centuries ago, when people had very limited knowledge about the universe; Allah says (what it means):
“AND THOSE WHO DENY THE FAITH DID NOT SEE THAT THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH WERE A COMPACT WHOLE, AND DID WE BREAK THEM APART, AND MAKE WATER INTO EVERY LIVING THING? – SO, DON’T YOU BELIEVE? ” [HOLY QURAN 21:30]
As stated in the verse, everything, even the “heavens and the earth” that have not yet been created, were created with a single point Big Bang, and shaped the present universe by being separated from each other.
When we compare the statements on the back with the Big Bang theory, we see that they fully agree with each other. However, the Big Bang was only introduced as a scientific theory in the 20th century.
The expansion of the universe is one of the most important evidences that the universe was created from nothing. Although this fact was not discovered by science until the 20th century, Allah informed us of this reality in the Quran (revealed 1,400 years ago) saying (what it means):
“AND THE SKY, WE BUILT IT WITH VIGOR, AND, OF COURSE, IT IS WE WHO ARE EXPANDING IT.” [HOLY QURAN 51:47]
