April 06, 2013

Quranic Explanation of Singularity

All stars will eventually die. They will either directly collapse on themselves and become black holes, or their remnants will merge with other stars that will eventually become black holes, or if external mass falls into those remnants they will blow up and leave black holes... So black holes are the destiny of most stars. Actually our solar system formed out of debris of a star 100 times more massive than our sun that exploded and became a black hole.

Singularity
At the center of black holes (collapsed stars) lies a location called the Singularity. An observer far away from a black hole sees the events near a back hole in slow motion. If he shines a beam of light into this black hole he will have to wait forever but still this beam of light will never reach the singularity. The singularity is a location in the future of stars where gravity goes so mad that space and time become indistinguishable. From general relativity we know that this is a location where the structure of spacetime becomes singular (hence the name singularity). However singular (Ahad in Arabic) is one of God's 99 names. In the Quran God swears by the locations of stars which turned out to carry His own name:
[Quran 56.75-77] I swear by the locations of stars, it is a great swear if you knew, it is a noble Quran...
Here God swears not by the stars themselves but rather by their locations (mawakeh in Arabic). Today we know that the future of those locations is singular, that is, they carry God's own name: "Ahad".

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