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1400 years ago, it was believed that space was a perfect vacuum, and thus no sound could exist. However, recent cosmological discoveries have confirmed that the early universe was not a vacuum, and it contained sound waves, known as the "sound of the Big Bang."
The early universe, shortly after the Big Bang, was a hot and dense environment where sound waves propagated through it. These waves were not temperature variations, but actual sound waves traveling through the early cosmic medium. As the universe cooled and expanded, these sound waves were stretched, creating a lower-frequency "bass" sound, detectable through modern instruments. By compressing over 380,000 years of sound data into just 100 seconds, scientists have been able to create an audio representation of these sound waves. This "Sound of the Big Bang" is not something we could hear with our ears, as it was so low in frequency that it had to be boosted by 100 septillion times (a number with 24 zeros) to be audible to humans to Sound Waves In Quran 41:11, it is stated:
Then He turned towards the heaven when it was ˹still like˺ smoke, saying to it and to the earth, ‘Submit, willingly or unwillingly.’ They both responded, ‘We submit willingly.’41:11
The word "said" here is noteworthy, as it implies that the heavens had a voice, which means the universe, or the heavens, emitted some form of sound. This is in alignment with the idea that the early universe, full of hot gases and energetic processes, had sound waves traveling through it. The verse describes the universe as responding willingly, which can be interpreted as the universe (or "heaven") emitting sound waves in response to God's command. Whilst these verses might not necessarily reference the scientific findings mentioned here, even the most hard to imagine realities explained by the Quran, can be shown to be permissible with modern scientific discoveries.
While sound was thought to be impossible in the vacuum of space, the Quranic description of the universe "speaking" (or emitting sound) aligns remarkably well with our current understanding of the early universe's sound waves. Modern physics now affirms that these sound waves existed and were a fundamental part of the universe's early development, which was only confirmed with advanced tools and observations many centuries after the Quran was revealed. Whilst these verses might not necessarily reference the scientific findings mentioned here, they showcase how, even the most hard to imagine realities explained by the Quran, can be shown to be permissible with modern scientific discoveries.