{"id":34492,"date":"2025-06-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/?p=34492"},"modified":"2025-05-27T04:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T11:24:11","slug":"quantum-mechanics-modern-physics-bahai-teachings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/quantum-mechanics-modern-physics-bahai-teachings\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum Mechanics, Modern Physics and the Baha\u2019i Teachings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I reflect on the Baha\u2019i<\/a> teachings, which stunningly prefigure many of the discoveries of modern physics, I see an interesting pattern. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a physicist, I\u2019ve noticed that most of the clearest scientific expressions and explanations in the Baha\u2019i teachings come from the writings and talks of Abdu\u2019l-Baha<\/a>. Looking carefully, those explanations usually trace back to the original concept provided by Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/a>. However, ultimately Abdu\u2019l-Baha seems uniquely capable of pulling these concepts out, explaining them in clear, modern language, and rendering them intelligible to us\u2014or at least to me.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example on the question of the ultimate substance of matter, in Baha\u2019u\u2019llah\u2019s \u201cTablet of Wisdom\u201d we can see the presence of the ideas later expressed by Abdu\u2019l-Baha:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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… He (Socrates) it is who perceived a unique, a tempered, and a pervasive nature in things, bearing the closest likeness to the human spirit, and he discovered this nature to be distinct from the substance of things in their refined form. \u2013 Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/a>, Tablets of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/em>, p. 146.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This, I suspect, forms the kernel of the idea that underlies Abdu\u2019l-Baha\u2019s statement that:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Even the ether, the forces of which are said in natural philosophy to be heat, light, electricity and magnetism, is an intelligible and not a sensible reality. \u2013 Abdu\u2019l-Baha<\/a>, Some Answered Questions<\/em>, newly revised edition, pp. 93-94.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps this alludes to the other uniquely modern ideas from the Baha\u2019i teachings about non-existence of rest and a void, which both flow from the concept of a pervasive and spirit-like essence underlying all matter. For those reasons and from my perspective, it seems it would behoove us to pay extremely careful attention to what Abdu\u2019l-Baha says about science and the universe, despite how deceptively simple it may sound.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With hindsight we can easily see the many important principles contained in Abdu\u2019l-Baha\u2019s writings and speeches\u2014for example, the understanding that both matter and light arises from the ether, the understanding that this field represents a non-physical \u201cintellectual reality\u201d and that absolute rest is impossible via his statement \u201cthat motion be an inseparable concomitant of existence.\u201d<\/span> These concepts<\/span> expose some of the core ideas of quantum mechanics and later field theory\u2014which developed as guiding lights of contemporary science long after Abdu\u2019l-Baha first expressed them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Louis
Louis de Broglie<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

All this makes me wonder how a scientist existing before the advent of the quantum wave function might have used Abdu\u2019l-Baha\u2019s statements to hasten these discoveries. One could imagine an insightful individual who might have taken Abdu\u2019l-Baha\u2019s statements on ether and matter to heart, and seen, as the pioneering French physicist Louis de Broglie eventually postulated, that matter might be modeled as a wave; or later understood that this same field could also explain electromagnetism. Yet still, this kind of discovery requires formulating these principles in terms of the problems and the mathematics at hand, which makes me doubt anyone will discover a fully formed theory of physics hidden in scripture. Instead, we can sometimes find principles which should inspire and hopefully point the direction towards fruitful scientific inquiry. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, let\u2019s take a closer look at some of the probable truths contemporary science still wrestles with and attempts to prove, and see if we can find corollaries or clues within the Baha\u2019i teachings. Several ideas seem to be suggested in the Baha\u2019i writings which many physicists think are true, but haven\u2019t conclusively proven yet. I\u2019ll list two of the most important ones here:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cosmos Exhibits Self-similarity<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concept perhaps should really belong in the category of known scientific facts, since this is a plainly observed phenomena of our universe, due to the nature of our physical laws. While it hasn\u2019t yet been conclusively proven\u2014it would be a very difficult theory to prove, after all\u2014most scientists already accept it; and most laymen do, too. In part, it has driven the development of such emerging sciences as fractal mathematics. The Baha\u2019i<\/a> teachings express this cosmic self-similarity in terms of the obvious patterns of nature, from the smallest element to the largest:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2026 earthly and heavenly, material and spiritual, accidental and essential, particular and universal, structure and foundation, appearance and reality and the essence of all things, both inward and outward\u2014all of these are connected one with another and are interrelated in such a manner that you will find that drops are patterned after seas, and that atoms are structured after suns in proportion to their capacities and potentialities. \u2013 Abdu\u2019l-Baha<\/a>, Tablet of the Universe<\/em>, provisional translation.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Cosmos is Infinite<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the belief that our universe originated with a singularity, scientists now have a strong suspicion that our cosmos is infinite, populated by a multi-verse. In fact, the infinite nature of the universe is now almost a requirement for many existing theories beyond the standard model. Since science centers so much on measurement, this theory also approaches impossibility in terms of proof\u2014but the Baha\u2019i teachings have proclaimed the infinitude of the universe since the beginning of the revelation:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Know thou that the expressions of the creative hand of God throughout His limitless worlds are themselves limitless. Limitations are a characteristic of the finite, and restriction is a quality of existent things, not of the reality of existence. \u2013 Ibid.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I reflect on the Baha\u2019i teachings, which stunningly prefigure many of the discoveries of modern physics, I see an interesting pattern. As a physicist, I\u2019ve noticed that most of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1984,"featured_media":87630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[3241],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1984"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87629,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions\/87629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bahaiteachings.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=34492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}