Expansion of the Universe

From The Quran-7th Century

Quran Revealed the Verse about the Expansion of the Universe Confirming this Fact In the Chapter Al-Dhariyaat

سُوۡرَةُ الذّاریَات

Chapter Number 51 Verse Number 47

وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بَنَيۡنَـٰهَا بِأَيۡيْدٍ۬ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ (٤٧) 

Translation

1/And We built the heavens with strength, and We are indeed expanding it.

2/With power and skill did We construct the Firmament We are [its] expander

3/We have made the heavens with Our own hands and We are expanding it.

Derivatives and English Translation of the word لَمُوسِعُونَ

The root of لَمُوسِعُونَ is و-س-ع (w-s-ʿ), which generally conveys meanings related to wideness, spaciousness, capacity, and abundance.
From this root, we can derive various forms and meanings:

Form I (فَعَلَ – faʿala): وَسِعَ (wasiʿa) – to be wide, to be spacious, to contain, to encompass.
Form II (فَعَّلَ – faʿʿala): وَسَّعَ (wassaʿa) – to widen, to expand, to make spacious.
Form IV (أَفْعَلَ – afʿala): أَوْسَعَ (awsaʿa) – to make wide, to enlarge, to grant abundance, to enrich, to be wealthy or well-off. This is the form most directly relevant to لَمُوسِعُونَ.
Form X (اِسْتَفْعَلَ – istafʿala): اِسْتَوْسَعَ (istawsaʿa) – to seek spaciousness, to ask for more room.

The word لَمُوسِعُونَ itself is derived from the Form IV verb أَوْسَعَ (awsaʿa). The prefix لَـ (la-) is an emphatic particle, often translated as “indeed” or “surely.” The core part مُوسِعُونَ (mūsiʿūn) is the sound masculine plural active participle of Form IV.

Considering the emphatic prefix and the meaning of the root and participle form, a comprehensive English translation of لَمُوسِعُونَ (lamūsi’ūn) would be “indeed expanders,” “surely those who make spacious,” “verily those who grant abundance,” or “certainly those with ample means/capacity.” The specific nuance often depends on the context in which the word is used, particularly in religious texts like the Quran where it appears.

Grammatical Format of the word لَمُوسِعُونَ

The word لَمُوسِعُونَ (lamūsi’ūn) is grammatically classified as a present participle (اسم فاعل – ism fāʿil). More specifically, it is the masculine sound plural of the active participle of a Form IV verb. The ending ـُونَ (-ūn) signifies the masculine sound plural in the nominative case.

Regarding the “plural of respect,” this concept, known as pluralis majestatis or plural of reverence, is indeed used in Arabic, particularly when referring to God or highly respected figures. In such cases, a plural form might be used to convey grandeur, majesty, or respect, even when referring to a singular entity. While لَمُوسِعُونَ (lamūsi’ūn) is grammatically a plural, its application in contexts where it refers to a singular entity (e.g., God) would indeed fall under the umbrella of plural of respect, emphasizing the vastness of God’s capacity and abundance.

From Scientists and Their Works

The History records that The journey to understanding the expanding universe began with the prevailing view of a static cosmos, largely influenced by Isaac Newton’s work.

Early Concepts of a Static Universe

Isaac Newton (Late 17th Century – Early 18th Century)

Newton’s law of universal gravitation, published in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687, described the attractive force between any two objects with mass. This law, while revolutionary, presented a cosmological dilemma. If gravity is universally attractive, a static universe filled with matter should inevitably collapse in on itself due to mutual gravitational pull. To reconcile this with the observed stability of the cosmos, Newton and many subsequent thinkers implicitly or explicitly assumed an infinite, uniformly distributed universe where gravitational forces would balance out, or that the universe was static and infinite, preventing collapse . Newton himself considered the possibility of an infinite universe to avoid collapse, but this concept had its own issues, such as Olbers’ paradox (though formulated later).

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation: $F=G\frac{m_1{m}_2}{r^2}$ Where:

• $F$ is the gravitational force between two objects.
• $G$ is the gravitational constant.
• $m_1$ and $m_2$ are the masses of the two objects.
• $r$ is the distance between the centers of the two objects.

This equation, while fundamental to understanding gravity, did not inherently describe a dynamic universe; rather, its implications for a finite, static universe were problematic, leading to the assumption of an infinite, static one.

Albert Einstein (1915 – 1917)

In 1915, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which revolutionized our understanding of gravity by describing it as a curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. His field equations are:

$R_{\mu \nu }-\frac{1}{2}R{g}_{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Lambda }{g}_{\mu \nu }=\frac{8\pi G}{c^4}{T}_{\mu \nu }$

Where:

• $R_{\mu \nu }$ is the Ricci curvature tensor.
• $R$ is the scalar curvature.
• $g_{\mu \nu }$ is the metric tensor.
• $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ is the cosmological constant.
• $G$ is Newton’s gravitational constant.
• $c$ is the speed of light.
• $T_{\mu \nu }$ is the stress-energy tensor.

Initially, Einstein, like his contemporaries, believed in a static universe. When his equations, in their original form, suggested a dynamic (either expanding or contracting) universe, he introduced the cosmological constant ($\mathrm{\Lambda }$) in 1917 to counteract gravity and achieve a static solution. He later famously called this his “biggest blunder” after Hubble’s discoveries.

The Theoretical Foundation for an Expanding Universe

Alexander Friedmann (1922 – 1924)

Working independently, Russian cosmologist Alexander Friedmann, in 1922 and 1924, derived solutions to Einstein’s field equations without the cosmological constant. His work showed that the universe could be dynamic – either expanding or contracting – depending on its density and curvature. These solutions are now known as the Friedmann equations:

${\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)}^2=\frac{8\pi G}{3}\rho -\frac{k{c}^2}{a^2}+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }{c}^2}{3}$

$\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}=-\frac{4\pi G}{3}(\rho +\frac{3P}{c^2})+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }{c}^2}{3}$

Where:

• $a$ is the scale factor, representing the relative expansion of the universe.
• $\dot{a}$ and $\ddot{a}$ are its first and second derivatives with respect to time, respectively.
• $G$ is Newton’s gravitational constant.
• $\rho$ is the energy density of the universe.
• $k$ is the curvature parameter (0 for flat, +1 for closed, -1 for open).
• $c$ is the speed of light.
• $P$ is the pressure.
• $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ is the cosmological constant.

These equations, derived directly from Einstein’s general relativity, provided the theoretical framework for an expanding universe, even before observational evidence was widely accepted.

Georges Lemaître (1927)

In 1927, Belgian priest and physicist Georges Lemaître independently derived similar solutions to Einstein’s equations, predicting an expanding universe. He also proposed a linear relationship between the distance of galaxies and their recession velocity, a concept that would later be known as Hubble’s Law. Lemaître’s work, initially published in an obscure Belgian journal, was not widely recognized until later.

Empirical Evidence and Confirmation

Edwin Hubble (1929)

In 1929, Edwin Hubble, working with Milton Humason, published his groundbreaking observations of distant galaxies. By measuring the redshift of light from these galaxies (indicating they were moving away from us) and estimating their distances, Hubble found a direct correlation: the farther away a galaxy was, the faster it was receding. This relationship is now known as Hubble’s Law:

$v=H_{0}d$

Where:

• $v$ is the recession velocity of the galaxy.
• $H_0$ is the Hubble constant, representing the rate of expansion of the universe.
• $d$ is the proper distance to the galaxy.

Hubble’s observations were crucial empirical evidence, but the theoretical framework that allowed for the interpretation of an expanding universe came from Einstein’s field equations of general relativity, specifically as solved and interpreted by Friedmann and Lemaître. While Einstein initially resisted the idea of an expanding universe by introducing the cosmological constant, his fundamental equations, when solved without that constraint (as Friedmann did), inherently described a dynamic cosmos. So, it was Einstein’s mathematics, specifically the Friedmann equations derived from Einstein’s general relativity, that provided the theoretical underpinning for the expanding universe that Hubble’s observations then confirmed.