The scientific discoveries that prove God does exist, according to best-selling French book based on insights from 62 Nobel Prize winners

It's a question that has been asked since the beginning of time: does God really exist?

Traditionally, science has been the counterargument for the existence of a divine creator.

However, French mathematicians Olivier Bonnassies and Michel-Yves Bollore now say that science 'has become God's ally'.

In a new book, the duo have distilled insights from 62 Nobel Prize winners and more than 100 leading scientists to pinpoint the scientific discoveries that could prove God is real.

This includes everything from the Big Bang – the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe – to DNA and the human genome.

'Until recently, believing in God seemed incompatible with science,' say the authors.

'Now, unexpectedly, science appears to have become God's ally.'

Ultimately, whether science disproves or supports the existence of God remains open to interpretation – but these scientific discoveries offer a tantalising glimpse at the possibility that our world is the result of design, not chance.

The Big Bang is the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe, and posits that the universe exploded into existence from a single point about 14 billion years ago.

According to the theory, in an instant quicker than the blink of an eye, matter and energy, as well as space and time, were suddenly born.

Many academics – including the late Professor Stephen Hawking – have refuted the suggestion that a divine creator was behind the Big Bang.

But according to the authors, who are both Christians, such an action dictates there was some kind of higher being that could have triggered it.

In their book, the duo ask if 'it really such a leap to entertain the possibility of a creative act' behind the Big Bang.

'The Big Bang forces us into a corner,' they say in their book.

'To put it bluntly, it brings us face-to-face with the idea of God.

'The fact that we cant really think about the time before the Big Bang, as the categories of time, space and matter simply do not apply, lends credence to the idea of a creative act.

'If there was mathematical information before the Big Bang, who is the incredible "programmer" behind such code?'

It was back in 1965 when two astronomers in New Jersey provided pivotal evidence confirming the theory of the Big Bang.

For the first time, they discovered cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the radiation left over from the birth of the universe, considered the Big Bang's leftover glow.

However, half a century later, there is still not an alternative theory that's supported by experimental observations, the French mathematicians point out.

'We wait in vain,' they add.

Life only exists on Earth due to a precise combination of factors – such as just the right temperatures, our planet's protective magnetic field and the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Other 'vital parameters' include the 'perfect' inclination of Earth's axis of rotation and the thickness of its ozone layer, protecting us from the sun's deadly radiation.

More broadly, everything in the universe is governed by essential forces – such as the strong force, the weak force and the electromagnetic force.

The researchers point out that these constants carry a series of numbers or values, calculated by some of the finest scientific minds such as German physicist Albert Einstein.

Either these 'fine–tuned' numbers are the 'result of chance' – one that is only infinitesimally unlikely – or they come from 'complex calculations of a highly intelligent creator God', say Bolloré and Bonnassies.

'For some of these numbers, a very slight variation by even a distant decimal point would have yielded an unrecognizable Universe, and we would not be here to talk about it,' they write.

This school of thought, known as the fine–tuned universe hypothesis, conjures the image of an almighty creator in the heavens twiddling dials and knobs.

While this image may be a leap of the imagination, the alterative belief that the universe 'is a purposeless accident' is less backed by the perfectly calibrated numbers.

Theoretically, Earth might have existed without harboring the wonderfully diverse range of plants and animals that it does today – but somehow life found a way.

Around four billion years ago, inert matter became the earliest primitive lifeforms and DNA mysteriously came into existence.

The improbability of the 'enormous leap' from inert matter to life is 'dizzying', the French mathematicians explain – and chance alone 'cannot explain the appearance of life'.

In 1953, the discovery of DNA's double–helix structure by Sir Francis Crick and James Watson revealed the existence of a single encoding language common to all lifeforms.

More recently, in 2003, scientists built on the work of Crick and Watson to map the human genome – the entire set of DNA instructions found in a cell.

Crick, himself an atheist, admitted a complex structure like DNA could not have appeared by chance' – and appeared to be 'almost a miracle'.

DNA forms part of a 'unique, sophisticated and coordinated coding system' that points to the existence of an 'intelligent designer'.

Bolloré and Bonnassies suggest life arose when it did due to natural laws set in place by God in the very beginning, or the result of a special intervention by the same creator.

'In the last 50 years, we have discovered that the complexity of life surpasses anything we could have imagined,' they say. 'Today's leading figures in science have been humbled by this fact.'

Albert Einstein – who described himself as 'not an atheist' but didn't embrace religion either – developed the Theory of Relativity between 1905 and 1917.

The theory, which altered our understanding of physics, says time, space, matter and energy and interrelated and that no single one of them can exist without the other.

It says light, and specifically the speed of light, is the only 'constant' in the universe – and everything else is relative, even time.

Some Christians have interpreted the theory as proof that God exists by drawing comparisons between light and God – both unchanging constants.

Notably, the Bible says 'God is light' and repeatedly uses the word 'light' to describe an all–present God – such as 'I am the light of the world' and the 'Lord is my light and my salvation'.

The theory says time would stop if something was travelling at the speed of light – while comparably God is eternal, having no beginning and no end.

Although Einstein didn't present this religious interpretation as truth, aspects of his theory certainly support the belief that God exists.

Of all the scientific discoveries in the 20th century, few have left scientists dumbstruck like quantum physics.

Classical models of physics cannot explain the world of quantum mechanics, which challenge our understanding of reality.

For example, a phenomenon called quantum entanglement describes two particles and their properties becoming linked without physical contact with one another.

In recent years, French physicist Alain Aspect, a Nobel prize winner, demonstrated quantum entanglement between two particles about 40 feet apart that were 'dialogued instantaneously' with each other.

Quantum experiments like that have made it clear 'that within the realm of physics there is another later of reality,' the duo say in the book.

'The twentieth–century discovery of the quantum nature of our world – which shows that it is indeterminate and radically subject to chance – is metaphysically essential,' they added.

'It provides indirect confirmation of the thesis that God exists while undermining the determinist positions held by atheist scientists of the nineteenth century.'

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Overall, the authors insist that the evidence for God's existence is 'abundant, clear and rational', and their arguments are grounded in 'reason and careful analysis'.

'Traces of God's actions' in the universe are far more tangible than those of aliens, they add – but somehow scientists spend more effort to finding the latter.

'We are living in extraordinary times,' they conclude in the book.

'Although this shift has gone largely unnoticed by the general public, we are in the midst of an intellectual paradigm shift that fundamentally redefines our approach to the question of God's existence.'

The English–language version of 'God, the Science, the Evidence' has been published in paperback by Palomar