A Muslim’s take on this year's Nobel prize in Physics

This year’s Nobel prize in physics has so many implications in the recognition of the changing reality and future direction of science and engineering that we ought to understand the fundamentals as well as the consequence of it. The prize is given for the proof of Quantum superposition, Quantum entanglement and subsequent applications of that.

In a nutshell, the Nobel committee recognizes: the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement that works beyond the common sensical reality of current physical world which was proved in a laboratory settings. Consequently, a new set of Quantum Technologies are created to apply this apparently “spooky” nature of it. “Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger have each conducted groundbreaking experiments using entangled quantum state, where two particles behave like a single unit even when they’re separated. Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information.”¹ In future it may completely change the applied physics that we see around us today. Here are some of the immediate applications of quantum technologies:

• Quantum Computation: a new paradigm of computation that would bring potentially hyper-power that is unthinkable in our current transistor based computers. If current classical computers are like burning wood then quantum computers are like nuclear fusion technology to generate heat.

• Quantum communication: it potentially may take away the distance-limitation (it’s known as Quantum Teleportation) that’s in our classical physics i.e. no information can travel faster than the speed of light.

• Security/Encryption: secure our digital world beyond the current encryption so a bad actor can’t break into our communication, messaging, call, financial transaction, etc.

• And many more that we can’t even think now.

Now, let’s look at it through a different lens to see the other implications of this recognition. Usually you wouldn’t hear this from the traditional scientific community.

• Science is the product of intellect that Allah has blessed us with. Every scientific exploration, no matter how theoretical it sounds at the beginning, have potential to accumulate into transformative scientific and engineering technologies. We, the Muslims, shouldn’t and can not afford to fall behind in the scientific exploration. By the way, the modern definition of scientific method is defined by Hassan Ibn Al-Haiytham, the father of Optics, (called by European in his latinized name, Alhazen). He mentioned his motivation of scientific endeavor was to know almighty Allah through His magnificent creations.

• This prize is a recognition that no human beings, no matter how genius they are, are infallible. Einstein is the most talented scientist who changed the modern physics. He brought the relativity of time and space thus disproving Newton’s notion of gravitation. His E = mc² is the most famous equation which is also the foundation of nuclear energy. However, he couldn’t grasp the Quantum mechanics and declared the very notion of Quantum Superposition and Entanglement (in the EPR Paper-1935) as “spooky”. These Nobel prize winners physicists have proved Einstein’s notion of “objective reality” that you can explain through definite quality of physical matters as wrong.

• We can’t settle on the invention of Science and declare it as absolute truth, at least in the foreseeable future. Newton’s notion of gravity was disproved by Einstein (General Theory of Relativity) and then Einstein’s classical physics’ “objective reality” is disproved by Quantum Mechanics (Max Planck, Neils Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, etc.). All scientific discoveries bring enormous benefits to the human society but those shouldn’t and can’t be used to settle on the fundamental of our existence i.e. how the universe is operating and what’s behind that.

• This replaces the classical physic’s notion of objective reality, causality, and locality which has profound impact on how the arguments behind super natural causality is denied by the atheists. To be very clear, this doesn’t accept the “super natural causality” yet, but this very acceptance of the fact that the objective reality isn’t true anymore and the observability of cause-and-effect isn’t prerequisite to explain the phenomenon of life in this universe, has taken out the only weapon that the atheists have been using against the existence of God. The atheists, if they are honest, should be out-of-stock of their only weapon to justify their atheism, until they bring one new argument.

• The two fundamental believes in Islam are Qadr (destiny) and God’s omnipresence. You can’t use our classical physics’ objective-reality to explain those two aspects. We used to be always on the defense to justify those to the “atheistic or agnostic” science-minded people. We used to resort to many empirical evidence and deductive-reasoning to explain that. However, the quantum mechanics and its superpositions & quantum entanglement have turned the table of the discussion. God’s omnipresence can be internalize to some extent in our limited brain through the vocabulary of Quantum superpositions. Similarly, the quantum entanglement, along with superpositions, gives us the vocabulary that can be used to explain the Qadr of Allah: Allah knows the past, present and future and our destination is predetermined however, He may also change it if He wills through our actions and prayers. These are stretched vocabulary but at least for the first time there are some vocabulary that can be used to appreciate the greatness of God. Allahu Akbar - God is greater.

If you’re interested to learn more, and I strongly suggest to, read the below documents that will give you more in-depth to this new evolving fascinating field of study.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2022:

¹https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/press-release/

Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen Paper (dubbed as EPR paradox):

https://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777 

Understand the Bell’s Theorem in plain terms:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKy-B3Qf_RDVL6Z_CmgKf0tAbpXTua9mV

Bell's Theorem and the Non-locality of the Universe (very intuitive explanation by professor Brian Greene):

https://youtu.be/UZiwtfrisTQ

Bell’s Theorem (or Bell’s inequality):

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem/