Deep Seas and Internal Waves

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Surah 67.5 - Allah made the stars as missiles to throw at devils.

If that were true, it would be MAD cool.


Boru

[Rayaan]

Do salty water and plain water mix? They do. Maybe not evidently, but they do.

That is not always the case, however. See the answer below:

Fresh water is lighter than salt water. Therefore, fresh water "floats" on top of salt water. This principle becomes extremely important when considering the drilling of a well in order to tap into the ground water of any island. The weight of the rain water that percolates into the ground depresses the salt water beneath it forming a profile that has the appearance of a lens. This is called the Ghyben-Herzberg lens. The principle of this relationship was discovered independently by a Dutch scientist named Baden-Ghyben and a German scientist named Herzberg.

The underground boundary that separates the fresh water layer from the salt water is not a sharp boundary line. In reality, this boundary is a transition zone of brackish water (fresh/salt mixture). This is caused by seasonal fluctuations in rainfall, tidal action, and the amount of water being withdrawn either by humans or by natural discharge.

Salt Water vs. Fresh Water - Ghyben-Herzberg Lens


"And it is He Who has let free the two bodies of flowing water, one fresh and sweet, and the other salty and bitter, and He placed between them a barrier and prohibiting partition." (Surah 25:53)

Edit: Here's another proof of this phenomenon filmed in Planet Earth:

[The Grand Nudger]

Watched the video a few times...kept expecting to see some barrier, you know..prohibiting partition and all that?
(pro-tip...Rayaan...the water mixes there as well..constantly. Apparently, Allah's magical "barrier" is inefficient, and ineffective.)

[Rayaan]

Watched the video a few times...kept expecting to see some barrier, you know..prohibiting partition and all that?
(pro-tip...Rayaan...the water mixes there as well..constantly. Apparently, Allah's magical "barrier" is inefficient, and ineffective.)

Pro-tip ... you may not be able to see the barrier, but it's there. And I know you have functioning ears to listen to what was being said, instead of using your eyes only. Thus your instinctive "But hey I didn't see any barrier, so nuh-uh it doesn't exist!" answer is invalid. You also ignored the other link that I posted.

What did you even expect the barrier to look like? A visible magnet or something? A giant floating bedsheet? An impenetrable layer of smoke?

To aid your visual perception, here's an original clip of the video with better quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHn80f3lAUs

In the first 10 seconds the diver swims under a salty water, and then you can see him coming out of it and entering a different layer of water (freshwater) which almost creates an illusion as if he is heading upwards into the air although, actually, he is still under water. At 35 seconds, he starts to swim from the freshwater back into the saltwater, during which the camera view becomes a littly blurry for a second as it crosses the barrier once again.

The barrier is called a "halocline" (or also called brackish water) which is a meeting of fresh and salt water as the narrator explains in the video. Then he says that the freshwater from the jungle flows over the heavier saltwater from the sea. This means that the freshwater and saltwater are divided (with one floating above the other) and the halocline acts as a natural barrier between the two.

So the halocline itself is the "prohibiting partition" because it keeps the fresh and salty waters separated: Below it is the denser salty water. Above it is the lighter freshwater. The meeting and mixing of the two layers happens only within the halocline, seen as a very thin body of rippling water, but outside of it the two kinds of water do not mix. And that's exactly why it is considered to be a barrier.

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, there is no barrier. Water behaves in a specific way, sure...but that's not a barrier. There's certainly nothing prohibiting the water from mixing - because it does mix...even at that point, constantly. The line is only clear in a diagram meant to simplify for the purposes of explanation, in reality it's just a shift in relative salinity as you ascend or descend- and along that route you reach a threshold of measurement where one body of water behaves in one manner, and another - in another. Plenty of ways for it to mix even with this behavior in play - again demonstrating the ineffective nature of djinn cantrips.

When you have to air-quote shit you outta realize you're taking liberties. There's nothing miraculous about misunderstanding, or human beings shoehorning reality to fit their pet fantasies. In your own post, once you stated "it mixes" the claim was DOA. Doesn't even take any special knowledge or equipment to realize that water (more accurately, salt) behaves this way - it'll do it in a cup or bowl or jar or puddle as well, try it. Nothing more than a tongue - and notice that the verse in question is replete with sense data language (this ignores the possibility of a demonstrable trend of retconning, or that the verse is referring to something else entirely, of course)? Takes more to impress, let alone convince me. You're free to set your standards wherever you wish, of course.

[Rayaan]

If you really think that's not a barrier, and it doesn't prohibit the two kinds of water from mixing. then you're disagreeing with science, not just with the verse that I quoted. Because if there's no barrier, as you say, then what is the halocline which is right between the fresh and salt water? Is the halocline just a "line in a diagram" meant to simpliify for the purpose of explanation? If so, I'd like to see a source or an article that supports that claim.

Furthermore, the halocline doesn't just prevent the fresh and salt waters from mixing. Even leaf litters, soda cans, and other light trashes are prevented from falling into the denser saltwater. And completely different set of life-forms live below and above the barrier. Even the level of oxygen in the water is different below and above it. Here's some science reading for you if you don't believe me:

http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/16-cave-man

Like oil on water, freshwater that seeped into the cave from the surface floats above a denser layer of saltwater from the ocean. These layers meet and mix in a lens of brackish water called the halocline. If left undisturbed, the halocline can be paper thin, yet still visible to the naked eye. Whereas saltwater and freshwater are clear, the halocline appears somewhat like a hazily defined liquid body rippling within the water. It can act like a barrier, preventing leaf litter from the surrounding forest — along with plastic bags, soda cans and other light trash — from sinking into the denser saltwater. Along with the debris, the upper freshwater layer contains more oxygen than the saltwater below, and it supports a completely different set of life-forms.

The halocline divides the freshwater and saltwater throughout the cave system of limestone passageways — so narrow in parts that a diver must detach from his oxygen tanks to fit through — and caverns sometimes large enough to drive a semi-truck through them.

Damn, you were totally right, Rhythm. There's no barrier at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's worth mentioning that this claim was also made regarding the Pycnocline until it was thoroughly debunked and mocked. Undeterred, fantasists went off searching for something else that sounded close enough to what they wanted to hear. It was a short skip and jump from there to here. I wonder where we'll find this "barrier" hiding next? What Allah will have prohibited with his moon cracking superpowers all along.

-glad to see you're finally onboard, btw. I'm disagreeing with your pious desire to pigeonhole science, not science. I understand that debris and life and water and sodium exhibit all of this, I'm suggesting that magic isn't the explanation, nor is a barrier or a prohibition - and that the quran was unaware of what that explanation was. Ever notice how much better you float in seawater, btw? Miracles of the quran my salty ass.

[Marsellus Wallace]

Finding passages in holy books, that can be made to retroactively sound like they made predictions of later scientific discoveries, is nonsense (and non-science, for that matter).

If your book was so miraculous in it's predictions, they would be known before the scientific discovery is made.

Please explain these passages:

Surah 67.5 - Allah made the stars as missiles to throw at devils.

Surah 18.66 - The sun sets in a muddy spring

Surah 24.43 - Hail comes from mountains.

These are just a few of the absurdities in the Q'ran.

Funny how when a Muslim tries to argue the scientific discoveries mentioned in the Quran, these (and many other equally ridiculous passages) get left out.

The usual response from a muslim would be : "You interpreted the wrong way, he meant these things in a metaphorical way, here is what he really meant, blablablabla"

[The Grand Nudger]

I've found a very simple way to express my opinion on the matter Rayaan, since I seem to be failing to communicate the situation to you thusfar.

Where do you expect to find salt in a glass of water? The top.....or the bottom? Is the saltier -water- at the bottom of the glass heavier/denser, or is it the salt that's heavy/dense? Is this barrier or prohibition responsible for the behavior of salt poured into a glass of water, or the water in the glass with salt poured in....is Allah at work in your tumbler, as well as the sea - or might there be a simpler and better demonstrated explanation? Would you require a dispatch from the divine in order to have observed this, regardless of how it is achieved, or is it fairly apparent..to you...what happens in the glass? In the last diagram you posted, of the cenote...do you think that people living around it or drinking from it might have noticed, or had some way of noticing.... that there was saltwater at the bottom?

where did I find this you may ask? Oh....just the wiki on Halocline. Which also has a little graph about salinity and depth/temp....funny......doesn't seem to be a barrier or prohibition in the graph either?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halocline

A halocline can be easily created and observed in a drinking glass or other clear vessel.

[The Grand Nudger]

As an addendum, do the Greek stories of Scylla and Charybdis seem to suggest to you that Zues exists, or that some magical wisdom was imparted to the greeks by their gods in their sacred texts?