From: milind@agni.cc.nd.edu (Milind Saraph)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Islam and Science
Date: 8 Oct 92 22:12:54 GMT
Reply-To: milind@agni.cc.nd.edu (Milind Saraph)
Organization: Univ. of Notre Dame

This post brings closure to Islam and Science thread with Shakil and
I disagreeing whether the Suras which he listed imply the Big Crunch.

The Great Event in the Quran may refer to either destruction
of the earth or the Big Crunch.  Shakil says it is the Big Crunch.  I 
will outline both scenarios.  What follows is a summary and does not
include all the details.

Reference: Universe, William J. Kaufmann, III, ISBN 0-7167--1673-9

Destruction of the Earth and the fate of the Sun:

The sun is expected to exhaust its supply of H in its core in next 5 
billion years.  The hydrogen burning ceases in the core and moves
to the thin shell surrounding the core.  The core shrinks and becomes
hotter.  Its energy output causes the Sun's outer layers to expand.
The surface temperature falls to 3500 K and the gases glow with a
reddish hue.  The Sun now has reached the red-giant phase.  The Sun's
atmosphere expands to encompass Mercury, then Venus and finally
the Earth.  The inner planets are vaporized, the thick atmospheres
of the outer planets boil away to reveal tiny, rocky cores.
The Sun will destroy the planets that have accompanied it since its
birth.  The Sun eventually becomes a white dwarf; it cools off 
further and decreases in luminosity and surface temperature.  The
final fate of our Sun is a cold, dark, dense sphere of degenerate gases
rich in O, C and about the size of the earth.

The Fate of the Universe:

The fate of the Universe depends of the average density of matter in
the universe.  If it is small, the universe is unbounded and the
galaxies will continue to rush away from each other.  If it is large,
the universe is bounded, the gravity is sufficient to halt the
expansion and pull the galaxies back toward each other.  The present
observations and estimates of the density are not accurate enough to 
tell us whether the universe is bounded or unbouned.

The onset of the Big Crunch will be indicated by the blueshifts of
the distant galaxies.  As the universe contracts, the temperature
of the background radiation (currently 3 K) increases.  About 70 
million years before the Big Crunch, the temperature of the background
will be upto 300 K and the crowding of the galaxies will cause the 
night sky to be as bright as a day.  The universe will continue to
shrink and the background temperature continue to rise.  The author
does not put a number on when the Big Crunch may occur, however
it seems it will take tens of billions of years.

In the expansion forever scenario, in about 10**12 years, star
birth will cease, galaxies will dim and all the matter in the
universe will consist of dead stars or cold lumps.  In about 10**27
years, the galaxies will consist of very large black holes surrounded
by the halos of dead stars.  In about 10**31 years, the entire 
galaxies will spiral toward each other and eventually coalesce into
supergalactic black holes.  If proton is not a stable particle,
all the black holes will evaporate in 10**106 years.  [Then the
author stops with the following remark].  "Thus, we stand at the
frontiers of human knowledge, groping dimly into the remote future
for an understanding that might not even exist,.."

****

I could glean the following facts from the Suras listed by Shakil.
These are NOT interpretations.  I am using M. H. Shakir's
translation.

1. The mountains will be like tufts of wool, will crumble and flatten.

2. Heaven shall be split.  Heaven shall burst.  Heaven shall be all
   openings.  Heaven shall move from side to side.  Heaven shall be
   cleft asunder, rent asunder.  It will be like molten copper and 
   will be red in color.

3. There will be earthquakes, the earth will stretch.  It will spew
   forth what it contains and will become empty.

4. The stars will darken and will be dispersed.  The Sun will be
   covered.

5. The seas will flow forth.

****

Questions:

1. What does heaven mean?  Does it mean everything "not earth",
   the sky or the whole cosmos?

2. "The Great Event" in the Suras seems to desribe one single event,
   not a sequence of events spaced widely over time.  It seems that
   the great event certainly signifies the destruction of the earth.
   Does heaven bursting, being rent/cleft asunder, swaying, imply its
   destruction?  Applying the same rules of interpretation which 
   Shakil used, rent/cleft asunder seems to imply expansion,
   not the contraction as would be the case with the Big Crunch.

   What is the meaning of the earth "stretching" and becoming empty?
   From death of the Sun scenario, the Sun's atmosphere will engulf
   the earth and eventually vaporize it.  As long as the continental
   plates move, earthquakes are a common occurence, only their 
   magnitudes and locations are different.

   Irrespective of the eventual fate of the universe, the destruction
   of the earth is expected to occur after 5 billion plus years.
   The contraction of the universe which culminates into the Big Crunch
   would take as long as the expansion.  If the contraction starts now,
   the Big Crunch is at least 15 to 20 billion years away.
   The earth will be long gone before the Big Crunch.

   What is the meaning of the Sun being covered?  The Sun will have
   become a dead star long before the Big Crunch event.

3. After the formation of galaxies, the birth of stars is a 
   continuing process until at least 10**12 years.  The death of
   stars is also a continuing process.  What is the meaning of 
   "darkening stars" and their dispersal?  Dispersal implies some
   sort of an expansion.

4. The color which Shakil talks about may be during the death of the
   Sun or the color of the sky at ONE time point during the Big Crunch.
   The temperature of the background radiation (which is 3 degress K
   now) increases steadily and goes through the electromagnetic
   spectrum as the Big Crunch progresses.

In conclusion, I think Shakil's assertion that the Suras he listed are 
consistent with the current Big Crunch end of the universe scenario is
at best a creative interpretation.

-- Milind Saraph
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian