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The Strength and Power of the Atom
Is a Sign of God |
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You breathe air made up of atoms, eat foods composed of atoms
and drink water made up of atoms—with a body that itself
consists of atoms. The objects
you see around you are actually nothing more than photons
striking the electrons belonging to the atoms in your eyes.
And what about the things you touch and feel? Those too—hard and
soft, rough and smooth, cold or hot—consist of the atoms in your
skin interacting on the
atoms in those external objects.
Many people, of course, know that their bodies, the Earth, the
galaxies—in short the entire universe—consists of nothing but
tiny atoms. But they may still
never have thought about the system and solidity in the basic
building blocks of matter that we call “atoms.”
The fact is, however, that human beings live in the closest
possible proximity to this flawless arrangement throughout the
course of their lives. So splendid is
this system that each one of the trillions of atoms that
comprise the chair you sit in possesses an order and a
complexity about which an entire book could be
written. And under natural conditions, failing a major
intervention, that matchless order will persist without ever
suffering any impairment.
Internal Order Inside the Atom
Every atom consists of a nucleus and electrons that revolve
around the nucleus at a considerable distance away.
Electrons are particles that revolve around their own axes, and
also around the nucleus itself—just as the Earth revolves on its
own axis every 24 hours,
during its year-long orbit around the Sun. Just like the
planets, this revolution we refer to as the electron’s orbit
takes place according to an enormous
precision and without ever ceasing.
Up to dozens of electrons, that revolve and spin in an area too
small to be seen with even the most powerful microscopes, create
heavy traffic inside the
atom. The most vitally important point here is how these
electrons, which surround the nucleus just like a swarm of
satellites, never give rise to even the
smallest accident. For even the smallest mishap within the atom
might have terrible consequences. Yet no accident ever occurs;
all functioning continues in a
perfect order, flawlessly. Electrons, which revolve around the
nucleus at the unimaginable speed of 1,000 kilometers (620
miles) a second, never collide with
one another. The way that these electrons, all identical to one
another, maintain their own separate paths is quite astonishing.
Various questions—of why identical electrons have different
orbits around the nucleus, how they follow their orbits without
ever straying, and how they avoid
colliding with one another while traveling at great speeds in
such unbelievably minute spaces—all lead us to a single point.
The sole truth that confronts us in
this matchless order and fine balance is God’s immaculate
creation. In one verse, our Lord tells us:
You see the mountains you reckoned to be solid going past like
clouds—the handiwork of God Who gives to everything its
solidity. He is aware of what you
do. (Qur’an, 27:88)
As this verse tells us, the atom behaves as it does because God
gave it its solidity. The Arabic word of the phrase translated
here as “give solidity” is atqana,
which means to arrange or dispose of things to obtain the most
perfect result. The electrons within the atom constantly revolve
in the perfect manner, in the
paths that God has arranged for them—again as the verse informs
us. Never do they stray, even to the slightest degree.
Furthermore, when we consider the
universe, we see that everything composed of matter gradually
decays over the course of time, is worn down by external
factors, erodes, breaks down and
becomes impaired. Yet no such corruption is ever observed in the
atom—aside from in nuclear reactions (fission and fusion, which
we’ll discuss shortly)
carried out through deliberate, artificial interventions. As our
Lord tells us in the verse, the atom has been created to be
perfectly solid.
The Awesome Power in the Atomic Nucleus
Atom nuclei consist of protons and neutrons. But what is the
force that binds together these particles comprising the
nucleus? The so-called “strong nuclear
force,” the most powerful force that has yet been described by
the laws of physics, holds the atomic nuclei together.
This force keeps the protons and neutrons in the nucleus
together without dispersing. So powerful is this force that it
enables the protons and neutrons in
the nucleus to literally adhere to one another, yet keeps the
protons and neutrons separate and apart from one another. If
this force had any more binding
power, the protons and neutrons would combine with one another,
and were it any less, they would all spin away and the atom
would disintegrate.
When this attractive force in the nucleus is released, the atom
is “split” and the awesome power known as nuclear energy
results. As the number of protons
and neutrons grows, so does the size of the nucleus, as does the
magnitude of the force that binds these particles together.
In the larger nuclei, it becomes exceedingly difficult to
release this energy that binds the protons and neutrons
together. As the particles separate from one
another, they attempt to come back together with a greater
force, just like a spring. This force is approximately 1038
times greater than gravity—in other
words, a hundred billion, billion, billion, billion times
greater. So long as it is not interfered with, this energy does
no harm. Yet with human intervention, it can
assume a power capable of killing millions of people.
The Maintenance of the Force in the Nucleus
This extraordinary force in the atom’s nucleus, sufficiently
powerful in the aggregate to endanger the lives of millions, is
released by way of two different
atomic reactions. The reaction known as fission results from the
division or splitting of the atomic nucleus, while fusion is the
combining of two separate nuclei
under enormous force. In both types of reaction, a tremendous
quantity of energy is released.
During early experiments with fission, scientists bombarded the
nucleus of uranium-235 with neutrons at very high speed—and
found themselves confronted
by a most interesting state of affairs. After the neutron had
been absorbed by the uranium atom’s nucleus, it became highly
unstable. There was now a
difference in the numbers of protons and neutrons in the
nucleus, creating an imbalance. Therefore, to resolve that
imbalance, the nucleus begins splitting
apart, emitting a specific level of energy as well as the
particles contained within it, at very high speeds.
Scientists aimed the moving neutron in such a way as to strike
one of the nuclei in the uranium atoms. All that’s required is
for one of the atomic nuclei in that
mass of uranium-235 to split asunder. During such splitting,
each nucleus releases an average of two or three neutrons, which
strike other nuclei in turn,
initiating a chain reaction by striking other uranium nuclei.
Each newly split uranium nucleus behaves just like the first
one. A series of nuclear splits or fissions thus takes place.
And since a very large number of
uranium nuclei are split, an extraordinary level of energy is
released as a result.
It is this splitting of the U-235 nuclei that led to the
tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, costing the lives of tens
of thousands of civilians. But since the
Earth, the entire atmosphere and our very bodies all consist of
atoms, what prevents all these atoms from entering into just
such a reaction? What prevents
catastrophes like those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki taking place
anywhere, at any time?
Bearing in mind that some 100 trillion atoms can fit onto the
head of a pin, you can easily appreciate how any impairment to
the stable structure of one single
atom could lead to a similar chain reaction. That being the
case, what prevents such a nuclear reaction that could very
quickly obliterate the whole universe?
Neutrons have been created in such a way that when moving about
in a free state in nature—that is, independent of an atomic
nucleus—they undergo a
process known as beta decay. Because of this, one seldom
encounters a free neutron in nature, and then only for a very
limited duration. For that reason,
the neutrons to be used in nuclear reactions are released by
artificial means.
God, the Creator of this flawless order, the Creator of the
entire universe, has perfected all things. As revealed in verse
100 of Surah Yusuf, “... My Lord is
Subtle in what He wills. He is indeed All-Knowing and All-Wise.”
God has created the atom together with the awesome power
contained within it, and He
keeps that force under control in an extraordinary way. Our Lord
has created the atom with a system that can never go awry in its
natural state. Although
everything in the universe is eventually exposed to decay, the
atom maintains its solidity. The nucleus and the electrons that
revolve around it at such an
unimaginable speed show us this sound creation and matchless
dominion of God’s.
Atomic Energy and Nuclear Fission: A Miracle of the Qur’an
God is He Who splits the seed and kernel. He brings forth the
living from the dead, and produces the dead out of the living.
That is God, so how are you
perverted? (Qur’an, 6:95)
The terms “seed” (alhabbi) and “kernel” (annawa) in the above
verse may also indicate the splitting of the atom. Indeed, the
dictionary meanings of annawa
include “nucleus, center, atomic nucleus.” Furthermore, the
description of bringing forth the living from the dead can be
interpreted as God creating matter
from dead energy. Producing the dead out of the living may refer
to energy (dead) emerging from matter (living), since the atom
is in motion. (God knows
best.) That is because as well as “living,” alhayyi can also
mean “active, energetic.” With its meaning of “non-living,”
almayyiti, translated above as “dead,”
may very probably refer to energy.
Scientists define energy as the capacity for doing work. Matter,
the material that comprises all objects on Earth and in the
universe, consists of atoms and
molecules that can be seen to be in motion under an electron
microscope. In the early twentieth century, Albert Einstein
theorized that matter could be
converted into energy, suggesting that the two were
inter-related at the atomic level. This may be the bringing
forth of the dead from the living, as described
above, or, in other words, obtaining energy from matter, which
is in motion at the atomic level. In addition, yukhriju,
translated as “brings forth,” also means
“bringing out, emitting” (as in the case of electrical waves).
Therefore, the terms in this verse may be indicating the form of
energy obtained from the atom.
(God knows best.)
As we’ve seen, today it is possible to split the atomic nucleus
into its components. Based on Einstein’s theories, scientists
succeeded in obtaining energy
from matter through nuclear fission back in the 1940s. The verb
“to split,” expressed by the word faliqu in the above verse, may
be a reference to the
splitting (of the nucleus) that represents the dictionary
definition of fission. As we’ve seen, extraordinarily high
levels of energy are released when this
process takes place.
About The Author
Under the pen name of Harun Yahya, Adnan Oktar has written some
250 works. His books contain a total of 46,000 pages and 31,500
illustrations. Of these
books, 7,000 pages and 6,000 illustrations deal with the
collapse of the Theory of Evolution. You can read, free of
charge, all the books Adnan Oktar has
written under the pen name Harun Yahya on these websites http://www.harunyahya.com
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