If the world's finest minds
can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings
of nature, how could it be supposed that those
workings are merely a mindless accident, a product
of blind chance?
Paul Davies, Professor of Theoretical Physics
1
Scientists are
in general agreement that, on the basis of calculations,
the Big Bang took place about 17 billion years
ago. All the matter making up the universe was
created from nothingness but with the wonderful
design that we talked about in the first two chapters.
Nevertheless, the universe that emerged from the
Big Bang could have been much different from the
one that did emerge–ours.
For example,
if the values of four fundamental forces were
different, the universe would have consisted of
only radiation and become a tissue of light with
no stars, galaxies, human beings, or anything
else. Thanks to the extraordinary perfect balance
of those four forces, "atoms"–the building-blocks
of that which is called "matter"–came into being.
Scientists are
also in general agreement that the first two simplest
elements–hydrogen and helium–began to form during
the first fourteen seconds after the Big Bang.
The elements were formed as a result of a reduction
in the universal entropy that was causing matter
to scatter everywhere. In other words, at first
the universe was just an amassing of hydrogen
and helium atoms. If it had remained so, again
there could have been no stars, planets, stones,
soil, trees, or human beings. It would have been
a lifeless universe consisting of only those two
elements.
Carbon, the fundamental
element of life, is a much heavier element than
hydrogen and helium. How did it come into being?
Searching for
an answer to this question, scientists stumbled
upon one of the most surprising discoveries of
this century.
The Structure
of the Elements
Chemistry
is a science that deals with the composition,
structure, and properties of substances and with
the transformations that they undergo. The bedrock
of modern chemistry is the periodic table of elements.
First laid out by Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich
Mendeleyev, the elements in the periodic table
are arranged according to their atomic structures.
Hydrogen occupies the first place in the table
because it is the simplest of all the elements,
consisting of only one proton in its nucleus and
one electron revolving around it.
Protons are subatomic
particles that carry a positive electrical charge
in the nucleus of an atom. Helium, with two protons,
occupies the second place in the periodic table.
Carbon has six protons and oxygen has eight. All
the elements differ in the number of protons that
they contain.
Another particle
present in the nucleus of an atom is the neutron.
Unlike protons, neutrons do not carry an electrical
charge: they are neutral in other words, hence
their name.
The third basic
particle of which atoms are composed is the electron,
which has a negative electrical charge. In every
atom, the number of protons and electrons is the
same. Unlike protons and neutrons however, electrons
are not located in the nucleus. Instead, they
move around the nucleus at a very high speed that
keeps the positive and negative charges of the
atom apart.
The differences
in atomic structure (the numbers of protons/electrons)
are what make the elements different from one
another.
A crucial rule
of (classical) chemistry is that elements cannot
be transformed into one another. Changing iron
(with twenty-six protons) into silver (with eighteen)
would require removing eight protons from the
nucleus. But protons are bound together by the
strong nuclear force and the number of protons
in a nucleus can be changed only in nuclear reactions.
Yet all the reactions that take place under terrestrial
conditions are chemical reactions that depend
on electron exchange and that do not effect the
nucleus.
In the
Middle Ages there was a "science" called alchemy–the
forerunner of modern chemistry. Alchemists, unaware
of the periodic table or the atomic structures
of the elements, thought it was possible to transform
one element into another. (A favorite object of
pursuit, for reasons that should be apparent,
was trying to turn iron into gold.) We now know
that what the alchemists were trying to do is
impossible under normal conditions such as exist
on Earth: The temperatures and pressures required
for such a transformation to take place are too
enormous to achieve in any terrestrial laboratory.
But it is possible if you have the right place
to do it in.
And the
right place, it turns out, is in the hearts of
stars.
The Universe's Alchemy Labs: Red Giants
Red giants are huge stars about fifty
times bigger than our sun. Deep within
these giants, an extraordinary process
takes place.
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The temperature required
to overcome the reluctance of nuclei to change is
nearly 10 million degrees Celsius. This is why "alchemy"
in the real sense takes place only in stars. In
medium-sized stars like the Sun, the enormous energy
being radiated is the result of hydrogen being fused
into helium. Keeping
this brief review of the chemistry of elements
in mind, let us return to the immediate aftermath
of the Big Bang. We mentioned that only helium
and hydrogen atoms existed in the universe after
the Big Bang. Astronomers believe that solar-type
stars (of which the Sun is one) are formed as
a result of nebulae (clouds) of hydrogen and helium
gas being compressed until the hydrogen-to-helium
thermonuclear reaction gets started. So now we
have stars. But our universe is still lifeless.
For life, heavier elements–oxygen and carbon specifically–are
required. There needs to be another process whereby
hydrogen and helium can be converted into still
other elements.
The "manufacturing-plants"
of these heavy elements it turns out are the red
giants–a class of stars that are fifty times bigger
than the Sun.
Red
giants are much hotter than solar-type stars
and this characteristic enables them to do something
other stars cannot: They convert helium into
carbon. Nevertheless, even for a red giant this
is not easy. As the astronomer Greenstein says:
"Even now, when the answer (as to how they do
it) is well in hand, the method they employ
seems astonishing."2
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Helium nucleus |
Carbon
nucleus |
The extraordinarily unstable isotope of
beryllium that is formed in red giants.
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Normal
beryllium as found on Earth. |
Helium's atomic
weight is 2: that is, it has two protons in its
nucleus. Carbon's atomic weight is 6. In the fantastically
high temperatures of red giants, three helium
atoms are fused into a carbon atom. This is the
"alchemy" that supplied the universe with its
heavier elements after the Big Bang.
But as we said:
it's not easy. It's nearly impossible to persuade
two helium atoms to join together and quite impossible
for three. So how do the six protons needed for
carbon get together?
It's a two-step
process. First, two helium atoms are fused into
an intermediary element with four protons and
four neutrons. Next, a third helium is added to
this intermediary element to make a carbon atom
with six protons and six neutrons.
The intermediary
element is beryllium. Beryllium occurs naturally
on Earth but the beryllium that occurs in red
giants is different in a crucially important way:
It consists of four protons and four neutrons,
whereas terrestrial beryllium has five neutrons.
"Red-giant beryllium" is a slightly different
version. It's what's called an "isotope" in chemistry.
Now comes the
real surprise. The "red-giant" isotope beryllium
turns out to be incredibly unstable. Scientists
have studied this isotope for years and discovered
that once it has formed, it breaks down again
in just 0.000000000000001 second.
How is this unstable
beryllium isotope, which forms and disintegrates
in such a short time, able to unite with a helium
atom to become a carbon atom? It is like trying
to lay a third brick on two other bricks that
shoot away from each other in 0.000000000000001
second if they chance to come atop one another,
and form a construction in this way.
How does this
process take place in red giants? Physicists scratched
their heads over this puzzle for decades without
coming up with an answer. The American astrophysicist
Edwin Salpeter finally discovered a clue to the
mystery in the concept of "atomic resonance".
Resonance and Double
Resonance
Resonance
is defined as the harmony of frequencies (vibrations)
of two different materials.
A simple example
from ordinary experience will give us an idea
of what physicists mean by "atomic resonance".
Imagine yourself and a child at a playground where
there are swings. The child sits on the swing
and you give him a push to get him started. To
keep the swing moving, you have to keep pushing
it from behind. But the timing of these pushes
is important. Each time the swing approaches you,
you have to apply the force of the push just at
the right moment: when the swing is at the highest
point of its motion towards you. If you push too
soon, the result is a collision that disturbs
the rhythmic momentum of the swing; if you push
too late, the effort is wasted because the swing
is already moving away from you. In other words,
the frequency of your pushes must be in harmony
with the frequency of the swing's approaches to
you.
Physicists refer to such
a "harmony of frequencies" as "resonance". The
swing has a frequency: for example it reaches
you every 1.7 seconds. Using your arms you push
it every 1.7 seconds. Of course if you want,
you can change the frequency of the swing's
motion, but if you do, you have to change the
frequency of the pushes as well, otherwise the
swing will not swing right.3
Just as two or more moving
bodies can resonate, resonance can also occur
when one moving body causes motion in another.
This type of resonance is often seen in musical
instruments and is called "acoustic resonance".
It can occur, for example, among two finely-tuned
violins. If one of these violins is played in
the same room as the other, the strings of the
second will vibrate and produce a sound even
though nobody is touching it. Because both instruments
have been precisely tuned to the same frequency,
a vibration in one causes a vibration in the
other.4
The
resonances in these two examples are simple ones
and are easy to keep the track of. There
are other resonances in physics that are not simple
at all and in the case of atomic nuclei, the resonances
can be quite complex and sensitive.
Every atomic nucleus
has a natural energy level that physicists have
been able to identify after lengthy study. These
energy levels are quite different from one another
but a few rare instances of resonance between
atomic nuclei have been observed. When such
resonance occurs, the motions of the nuclei
are in harmony with one another like our examples
of the swing and violin. The important point
of this is that the resonance expedites nuclear
reactions that can affect the nuclei.5
Investigating
how carbon was made by red giants, Edwin Salpeter
suggested that there must be a resonance between
helium and beryllium nuclei that facilitated the
reaction. This resonance, he said, made it easier
for helium atoms to fuse into beryllium and this
could account for the reaction in red giants.
Subsequent research however failed to support
this idea.
| Fred
Hoyle was the first to discover the amazing
equilibrium of nuclear reactions taking
place in red giants. Although an atheist,
Hoyle admitted that this balance could not
be explained by chance and that it was a
deliberate arrangement. |
 |
Fred Hoyle was the second astronomer to address
this question. Hoyle took Salpeter's idea a step
further, introducing the idea of "double resonance".
Hoyle said that there had to be two resonances:
one that caused two heliums to fuse into beryllium
and one that caused the third helium atom join this
unstable formation. Nobody believed Hoyle. The idea
of such a precise resonance occurring once was hard
enough to accept; that it should occur twice was
unthinkable. Hoyle pursued his research for years
and in the end he proved that his idea was right:
there really was a double resonance taking place
in the red giants. At the exact moment two helium
atoms resonated in union, a beryllium atom appeared
in the 0.000000000000001 second needed to produce
carbon. George Greenstein describes why this double
resonance is indeed an extraordinary mechanism:
There are three quite
separate structures in this story-helium, beryllium,
and carbon-and two quite separate resonances.
It is hard to see why these nuclei should work
together so smoothly…Other nuclear reactions
do not proceed by such a remarkable chain of
lucky breaks…It is like discovering deep and
complex resonances between a car, a bicycle,
and a truck. Why should such disparate structures
mesh together so perfectly? Upon this our existence,
and that of every life form in the universe,
depends.6
In the years that followed
it was discovered that other elements like oxygen
are also formed as a result of such amazing resonances.
A zealous materialist, Fred Hoyle's discovery
of these "extraordinary transactions" forced him
to admit in his book Galaxies, Nuclei and Quasars,
that such double resonances had to be the result
of design and not coincidence. 7
In another article he wrote:
If you wanted to produce
carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities
by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two
levels you would have to fix, and your fixing
would have to be just about where these levels
are actually found to be…A commonsense interpretation
of the facts suggests that a super intellect
has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry
and biology, and that there are no blind forces
worth speaking about in nature. The numbers
one calculates from the facts seem to me so
overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost
beyond question.8
Hoyle declared that the
inescapable conclusion of this plain truth should
not go unnoticed by other scientists.
I do not believe that
any scientist who examined the evidence would
fail to draw the inference that the laws of
nuclear physics have been deliberately designed
with regard to the consequences they produce
inside the stars.9
This plain
truth was expressed in the Qur'an 1,400 years
ago. Allah indicates the harmony in creation of
the heavens in the verse: Do
you not see how Allah created seven heavens in
harmony… (Surah Nuh: 15)
A Lesser Alchemy Lab: The Sun
The conversion
of helium into carbon described above is the alchemy
of red giants. In smaller stars like our sun,
a simpler sort of alchemy takes place. The sun
converts hydrogen into helium and this reaction
is the source of its energy.
This
reaction is no less essential for us to exist
than are the reactions in the red giants. Moreover,
the sun's nuclear reaction is also a designed
process, just like the one in red giants.
Hydrogen,
the input element for this reaction, is the simplest
element in the universe for its nucleus consists
of a single proton. In a helium nucleus, there
are two protons and two neutrons. The process
taking place in the sun is the fusion of four
hydrogen atoms into one helium atom.
| The
sun is a giant nuclear reactor that constantly
transforms atoms of hydrogen into helium
and produces heat in the process. What is
crucial to this process however is the incredible
precision with which these reactions are
balanced within the sun. The slightest change
in any of the forces governing these reactions
would result in their failure or in a catastrophic
runaway explosion. |
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An enormous amount of energy
is released during this process. Nearly all the
thermal and light energy reaching Earth is the
result of this solar nuclear reaction.
Single-proton
hydrogen nuclei
Helium nucleus with two protons and two nueutrons
THE CRITICAL
REACTION IN THE SUN
1) Above: Four
hydrogen atoms in the sun join together to form
a single helium atom.
2)
Below1: This is a two-step process. First two
hydrogen atoms fuse forming a deuteron. This transformation
is a slow one and is what keeps the sun burning
constantly.
3) Below2:
If the strong nuclear force were just a little
bit stronger, a di-proton would be formed instead
of a deuteron. Such a reaction however cannot
be sustained for any length of time: a runaway
catastrophic explosion would occur in just a few
seconds.
Single-proton
hydrogen nuclei
Deutron nucleus with one proton and one neutron
Single-proton
hydrogen nuclei
Di-proton nucleus with teo proton
Like the
reactions taking place in red giants, this solar
nuclear reaction turns out to involve a number
of unexpected aspects without which it could not
take place. You can't simply jam four hydrogen
atoms together and turn them into helium. To make
this happen, a two-step process is required, paralleling
the one taking place in red giants. In the first
step, two hydrogen atoms combine to form an
intermediary nucleus called deuteron
consisting of one proton and one neutron.
What force could
be great enough to produce a deuteron by jamming
two nuclei together? This force is the "strong
nuclear force", one of the four fundamental forces
of the universe mentioned in the previous section.
This is the most powerful physical force in the
universe and is billions of billions of billions
of billions times stronger than the gravitational
force. Nothing but this force could unite two
nuclei like this.
Now the really
curious thing about all this is that research
shows that, strong as it is, the strong nuclear
force is just barely strong enough to do what
it does. If it were even slightly weaker than
it is, it would not be able to unite the two nuclei.
Instead, two protons nearing each other would
repel each other immediately and the reaction
in the sun fizzle out before it ever began. In
other words, the sun would not exist as an energy-radiating
star. Concerning this, George Greenstein says:
"Had the strong force had been only slightly
less strong, the light of the world would
have never been lit."10
What, on the
other hand, if the strong nuclear force were stronger?
To answer that, we first have to look at the process
of converting two hydrogen atoms into a deuteron
in a little more detail. First, one of the protons
is stripped of its electrical charge and becomes
a neutron. This neutron forms a deuteron by uniting
with a proton. The force causing this unification
is the "strong nuclear force"; the force that
converts a proton into a neutron on the other
hand is a different one and is called the "weak
nuclear force". It is weak only by comparison
however and it takes about ten minutes to make
the conversion. At the atomic level, this is an
immensely long time and it has the effect of slowing
down the rate at which the reaction in the sun
takes place.
Let us now return
to our question: What would happen if the strong
nuclear force were stronger? The answer is that
the reaction in the sun would be changed dramatically
because the weak nuclear force would be eliminated
from the reaction.
If the strong
nuclear force were any stronger than it is, it
would be able to fuse two protons to one another
immediately and without having to wait ten minutes
for a proton to be converted into a neutron. As
a result of this reaction, there would be one
nucleus with two protons instead of a deuteron.
Scientists call such a nucleus a "di-proton".
It is a theoretical particle however insofar as
it has never been observed to occur naturally.
But if the strong nuclear force were much stronger
than it is, then there would be real di-protons
in the sun. So what? Well by getting rid of the
proton-to-neutron conversion, we would be eliminating
the "throttle" that keeps the sun's "engine" running
as slowly as it does. George Greenstein explains
what the result of that would be:
The Sun would change
because the first stage in the formation of
helium would no longer be the formation of the
deuteron. It would be the formation of the di-proton.
And this reaction would not involve the transformation
of a proton into a neutron at all. The role
of the weak force would be eliminated, and only
the strong force would be involved…and as a
result the Sun's fuel would suddenly become
very good indeed. It would become so powerful,
so ferociously reactive, that the Sun and every
other star like it would instantaneously explode.11
The explosion of the sun
would cause the world and everything on it to
burst into flames, burning our blue planet to
a crisp in a few seconds. Because the strong nuclear
force is precisely fine-tuned to be neither too
strong nor too weak, the sun's nuclear reaction
is slowed down and the star has been able to radiate
light and energy for billions of years. This precise
tuning is what makes it possible for mankind to
live. If there were even the slightest deviation
in this arrangement, the stars (including our
sun) would not exist or if they did, they would
explode in a short time.
In other words
the structure of the sun is neither accidental
nor unintentional. Quite the contrary: Allah has
created the sun for people to live, as expressed
in the verse:
The
sun and the moon follow courses (exactly) computed.
(Surat ar-Rahman: 5)
Protons and
Electrons
So far we have been examining
matters concerned with forces that affect atomic
nuclei. There is another important equilibrium
in the atom that we must consider: the balance
between its nucleus and electrons.
Put in its simplest terms, electrons
revolve around the nucleus. The reason for this
is electrical charge. Electrons have a negative
charge and protons have a positive charge. Opposite
charges attract, so an atom's electrons are drawn
towards the nucleus. But the electrons are also
moving at an enormous speed which would, under
normal conditions, cause them to shoot away from
the nucleus. These two forces (attraction and
motion away) are balanced so that the electrons
move in orbits around the nucleus.
Atoms are also balanced in terms
of their electric charges: the number of orbiting
electrons is the same as the number of protons
in the nucleus. (For example, oxygen has eight
protons and eight electrons.) In this way the
electrical force of an atom is balanced and the
atom is electrically neutral.
So far, so much basic chemistry.
However there is a point in this seemingly simple
structure that is overlooked by many. A proton
is much bigger than an electron in terms of both
size and weight. If an electron were the size
of a walnut, a proton would be about the size
of a man. Physically, they are quite dissimilar.
But their electrical charges are the same size!
Although their electrical charges
are opposite (electrons negative, protons positive)
they are also equal. There is no obvious reason
why this should be so. Conceivably (and "logically")
an electron ought to carry a much smaller charge
because it is so much smaller.
But if that were true, then what
would happen?
What would happen is that every
atom in the universe would be positively charged
instead of being electrically neutral. And because
like charges repel, every atom in the universe
would try and repel every other atom. Matter as
we know it could not exist.
What would happen if it suddenly
became true now? What would happen if every atom
were to start repelling every other?
Quite extraordinary things would
happen. Let us begin with the changes that would
occur in your body. The moment this change occurred,
your hands and your arms holding this book would
shatter at once. And not just your hands and arms
but also your body, your legs, your eyes, your
teeth–every part of your body would explode in
a split second.
The room you sit in and the world
around you would explode in a moment. All the
seas, mountains, the planets in the solar system,
and all the stars and galaxies in the universe
would shatter into atomic dust. And there would
never again be anything in the universe to observe.
The universe would become a mass of disorganized
atoms pushing each other around.
By how much would the sizes of
the electrical charges of protons and electrons
have to differ in order for this dreadful thing
to happen? One percent? A tenth of one percent?
George Greenstein addresses this question in The
Symbiotic Universe:
Small things like stones, people,
and the like would fly apart if the two charges
differed by as little as one part in 100 billion.
Larger structures like the Earth and the Sun
require for their existence a yet more perfect
balance of one part in a billion billion.12
| Both
the mass and the volume of a proton are
incomparably larger than those of an electron
but, strangely enough, these two particles
have equal (though opposite) electrical
charges. Because of this fact, atoms are
electrically neutral. |
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Here is yet another precisely-tuned
equilibrium that proves that the universe is intentionally
designed and created for a particular purpose.
As John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler maintain
in their book "The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle", "there is a grand
design in the Universe that favours the development
of intelligent life."13
Of course every
design proves the existence of a conscious "designer".
That is Allah alone, "Lord of all the worlds",
described in the Qur'an as the only Power Who
created the universe from nothingness, and designed
and fashioned it as He willed. As stated in the
Qur'an, "He built the
heaven, He raised its vault high and made it level."
(Surat an-Nazi'at: 27-28)
Thanks to the
extraordinary balances that we have seen in this
chapter, matter is able to remain stable and this
stability is evidence of the perfection of Allah's
creation as revealed in the Qur'an:
Everyone
in the heavens and the earth belongs to Him.
All are submissive to Him.
(Surat
ar-Rum: 25)
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