A Brief Journey to the Universe: Time Travel using your Time Machine from IIUM

By, Md Maruf Hasan

Ernest Hemingway wrote a novel called, “ The Old Man and Sea”. When he was stuck in the sea for days , he was lamenting,and he wished his grandson like someone were with him in catching the fish. Life is very short and old people sometimeslove to share their wisdom with younger generations. Your rector of IIUM published a book titled, “Tawhid and Science Islamic Perspectives on Religion and Science”. I have read that book. This book is the collection of his writings that he wrote in his early life. In this book, Osman Bakar used a mystic term, “Microcosm.”

If we look from cosmic perspective, the term, “microcosm”[ Humans are microcosms] is really strange and thought-provoking concept. In a famous hadith, Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said, “Who knows himself, knows his Lord.”

Have you walked around the IIUM campus after evening and looked at the night stars? There is a light pollution due to City life, yet you can observe some stars in evening. Your eyes are somehow working as a time machine. That means when you look at the stars, you are looking at the past. Let me give an example to simplify. You do not need to be a science graduate to understand these simple concepts. Which Mahallah do you live in? Imagine (or walk as your read) you start walking from your Mahallah and give one round around the campus. So, you started to travel from your Mahallah. The light reached your eyes just now and the star is visible to your naked eyes, some of these lights started to travel like you as you travelled from your Mahallah. In daytime, the sunlight you see is , in fact, 8 minutesbefore they start to travel from our Sun. This is how you actually use your eyes as a time machine, and you can technically travel into the past.

Now again you return to evening time on campus and look at the sky. Some of the star lights started to travel a few years ago and when you see these stars, you are probably looking at those stars as they were in few years ago. You are seeing the picture of these stars as they were when they started to travel like you did from Mahallah. Who knows maybe the Star is already having Supernova explosion and becomes the ghost and to understand that you need to wait another few years until the News comes through light as you experienced now. You can see the cause and effect of Star lights.

Let’s assume we are allowed to travel to Langkawi and we are given permission to enter space observatory of Malaysia. With this big Telescope, you will see new pictures of the universe that human eyes can not detect. What does it mean? Light from low to high frequency and these are named as: radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. Other than visible light, humans’ eyes can notdetect those lights, but Telescope can detect. Now we can see light from distance past from millions of years to billions ofyears that are travelling through space.

Again, return to IIUM and look at yourself. You are mainly made of carbon molecules( Obviously there are others) . Have you ever asked how carbon molecules were formed? Your Carbon molecules were made inside another Sun like Star evenbefore our solar system was born. In other words, like the way  you cook your rice at home, most of the molecules were cooked and prepared inside the Sun like stars. The history of our solar system is around 4.7 billion years and the carbon that is inside your body was cooked and prepared more than 4.7 billion years ago. When a Star dies, it may explode, and it is called Supernova explosion. The gas spread in the space, and they gather and form Solar system like ours.

Hence, the body you have now, it got billions of years of history. In that instance, you can realize the importance of the mystic term “microcosm” or the prophetic hadith if you reflect with yourself. Humans are really lucky to be born in that sense. The Universe has 13.7 billion years of history, and you have 60 years of life. That’s like plank time in comparison to the age of our universe.

Let’s return to light again. Now we return to beginning of the universe when all the energy was symmetrical and accumulated within a small dot. The Big Bang happened, and our universe broke the symmetry. Spacetime was created. Remember you started to walk from your Mahallah and I am sure you were energetic. Similarly,  light is very energetic when they start travel, and it radiates gamma rays and as they travel through space for billion years, these fossils turn into radio waves. That’s called Cosmic Microwave background. This fossil record was detected in the 20^th century. So, light provided the information that it is traveling for approximately 13.7 billion years since our universe was born. You may realize the beauty and mystery of time and light. We are all stardust and inside us we have billion years of history. Isn’t it strange, amusing and painful at the same time?

The Quran utters repetitively 31 times in Surah ar-Rahman , “Which is it, of the Favours of your Lord, that ye deny?”

In one place the Quran swears by the time. Allah mentions, “By the ˹passage of˺ time! Surely humanity is in ˹grave˺ loss, except those who have faith, do good, and urge each other to the truth, and urge each other to perseverance (103:1-3).

When you are busy with your assignments, do make sometimes look at the sky to experience time travel through your time machine.***