The news of the award of the noble prize for physics have appeared and passed away like a cloud of radioactive fallout in the upper regions of a stratosphere that tending toward the outer space has disappeared leaving all the long list of the urgent problems of the nuclear world untouched. Or it may be likened to the remote strains of the flute of Nero while the city of Rome burned inflames. The reflection of the futility of the topic as well as the work done on it may be perceived in the remarks of the participants of the prize themselves, made after the declaration of the prize. Without distracting from the merit of the work done by the physicists in this respect it may be deemed pardonable if the attention of the scientists is invited to the fact that the narrow margin now left for the annihilation of this world under the hails of the atomic bombs, or the slow, lingering disintegration through long term effects of the atomic radiations, and the urgency of the problem warrants a special attention of the scientists so that it is the news of some sort of control on the insurgent atomic radiations, or of some means of protection against the radiations to the millions in the neighborhood of leaking and exploding reactors, or the tidings of some new design of a leak proof and explosion-proof reactor, or of the discovery of some sure cure for radiation sickness, or of an answer to any one of those innumerable questions in atomic physics and radiobiology on which the safety and existence of this world is staked. It is with a paining heart and indeed in a very regretful need, that could be said, alas, with perhaps some realistic plausibility, that man has reached the terminus of his ken and the plausible limits in the darkened regions of the nuclear science, while every important nuclear problem remains as yet unsolved, and every important question remains unanswered. The nuclear demon it appears is too formidable a contestant for man, and the grievous doom in the flames of the atomic hell appears to be inevitable despite the unusual optimism of the scientist. Urgent questions demand now urgent answers to decide the fate of mankind. The margin left is too narrow to admit of the round-about researches and long-term plans. The time for the scientist is to wake up from the dream and face facts in a very realistic manner. If the analysis of the situation reveals man’s inability in surmounting the nuclear problems, then let the scientist in the name of humanity find no hesitation in announcing so, that perhaps mankind would try to find some way out of the nuclear snare and may perhaps be saved.
A world under the influence of false inebriation is being drawn toward the atomic hell every moment helplessly and blindly. The methodology of science requires the declaration of the innocuity of radiation, and the provision of means of protection to masses against the radiations of the atomic reactors first and then only allows the recommendation of the adoption of the atomic energy for peace for man’s service. The present worldwide experiment of the atomic energy on the principle of utility cum research, employing the human species as guinea-pigs in so hazardous a field as that of atomic energy is certainly unscientific.
As far as the question of the unification of the forces of nature is concerned, the hopes of Einstein in tracing the functioning of these forces to the point where they may be found as unified in one force were not based on feasibility, for that is the point where the will actually of the mind of the creator is in operation, and man is not given to see the will of the creator. The quality of singularity and unity is for the creator only, and, the most Einstein could do was to reduce the number of the forces functioning in nature to the number of two, for it is on the quality of opposition that God created this creation. So that every quality has its opposite, while the creator has neither the like nor the opposite. This principle of the opposed qualities functioning in nature has also been given by the Quran, which says: the creation is based on the opposed qualities of darkness and light. The forces operating in the nature may be divided on this basis, that is the forces which tend to draw the things to rest, and the forces which working against these forces tend to produce motion and growth in the things. Gravity thus can be seen to act as the former, while other forces can be seen to act against it. An apple it is fabled fell on the head of Newton to remind him of the force of gravity. If an apple had also fallen on the head of Einstein while engrossed in the thought of the problem of the unification of the forces, he too might have been reminded of the operation of the two opposite forces. The chemical and botanical forces straining against the gravity from the birth of the apple tree to the fall of apple and later to the fall of the aged tree. But what Einstein would have missed were the nuclear forces. It is a matter of guess whether he would have realized that the absence of the nuclear forces in the experience of the apple’s falling on his heed showed the nuclear forces as the outlaws in the working of the realm of nature in that useful circle. Or whether he would have realized that the nuclear forces were like the lions that were better left to sleep, for if awakened they might devour the mankind. The study of history reveals a very interesting role of the apple in human history. The progenitor of mankind ate the apple and the even to open an endless chain of misery and affliction both for himself and his posterity to the doomsday. The Apple fell on the head of Newton in some cursed moment and the Pandora box of the miseries of science was opened to the last grievous doom of nuclear annihilation, either through atomic bombs or through the long-term effects of the radiations of the atomic energy for peace. Poor Russell died in disappointment as regards the end of mankind. He sent me a sentence in his last years, that was reminiscent of his dismay and which read, “Since Adam and eve ate the apple, man has never abstained from any folly of which he was capable, and the end is…… an exquisite photograph of the atomic bomb explosion.