Page 111 - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science
P. 111
The Scientific Miracles of the Qur'an
of water evaporates from the Earth. This figure amounts to 513 trillion
tons of water in one year. This number is equal to the amount of rain that
falls on the Earth in a year. This means that water continuously circulates
in a balanced cycle, in a "measure". Life on Earth depends on this water
cycle. Even if people used all the available technology in the world, they
would not be able to reproduce this cycle artificially.
Even a minor deviation in this equilibrium would very soon give rise
to a major ecological imbalance that would bring about the end of life on
Earth. Yet, this never happens, and rain keeps falling every year in exactly
the same quantity just as revealed in the Qur'an.
The proportion of rain does not merely apply to its quantity, but also to
the speed of the falling rain drops. The speed of rain drops, regardless of
their size, does not exceed a certain limit.
Philipp Lenard, a Nobel-prize winning German physicist, determined
that the speed at which raindrops fall increases with drop diameter, up to
a size of 4.5 mm (0.18 inch). For larger drops, however, the speed of
67
descent does not increase beyond 8 meters per second (26 ft/sec). This is
attributed to the shape of the falling drops, which increases their air
resistance and prevents them from exceeding a certain speed.
As can be seen, attention is drawn in the Qur’an to a delicate
adjustment in rain which could not have been known 1400 years ago.
The Seas' Not Mingling With One Another
One of the properties of seas that has only recently been discovered is
related in a verse of the Qur'an as follows:
He has let loose the two seas, converging together,
with a barrier between them they do not break through.
(Surat ar-Rahman: 19-20)
This property of the seas, that they come together yet do not mingle
with one another at all, has only very recently been discovered by
oceanographers. Because of the physical force called "surface tension",
the waters of neighboring seas do not mix. Caused by the difference in the
density of their waters, surface tension prevents them from mingling with
109