Maha Shivratri 2025: Why the world’s most advanced particle physics lab has a statue of Lord Shiva |

The significance of the Tandava extends past mythology, resonating deeply with creative and scientific thought alike. The dance embodies the perpetual movement of the cosmos, the place matter isn’t static however consistently shifting between states, very like the subatomic world described by quantum mechanics. In this everlasting rhythm, destruction will not be an finish however a crucial transition for renewal, mirroring the pure legal guidelines governing vitality and matter.
One of the most exceptional encounters with the Nataraja happened in early Twentieth-century Chennai (then Madras), the place an aged European gentleman stood mesmerised earlier than a Twelfth-century bronze in the metropolis’s state museum. As he gazed at the sculpture, he entered a trance-like state and commenced to imitate Shiva’s dance, his legs and arms shifting in rhythm with the cosmic vitality captured in bronze. The sight baffled museum guards and patrons, who gathered to look at the uncommon spectacle. Concerned by the disturbance, the curator arrived, ready to have the foreigner eliminated—till he realised the man was none aside from Auguste Rodin, one of the most celebrated sculptors of all time. Overcome with emotion, Rodin later described the Nataraja as “one of the greatest works of art ever created by the human mind.”
Rodin’s awe stemmed from the sculpture’s capability to seize each motion and stillness concurrently—Shiva’s limbs flail outward in a centrifugal explosion of vitality, but his face stays serene, embodying a paradox at the coronary heart of existence. It is that this fusion of dynamism and poise, chaos and order, that makes the Nataraja not simply a non secular icon however a profound metaphor for the dance of the universe itself.
As V. S. Ramachandran wrote in Phantoms in the Brain: “You don’t have to be religious or Indian or Rodin to appreciate the grandeur of this bronze. At a very literal level, it depicts the cosmic dance of Shiva, who creates, sustains, and destroys the Universe. But the sculpture is much more than that; it is a metaphor of the dance of the universe itself, of the movement and energy of the cosmos. The artist depicts this sensation through the skilful use of many devices. For example, the centrifugal motion of Shiva’s arms and legs flailing in different directions and the wavy tresses flying off his head symbolise the agitation and frenzy of the cosmos. Yet, amid this turbulence—this fitful fever of life—Shiva remains serenely composed, gazing at his own creation with supreme tranquillity and poise.”

CERN’s Cosmic Paradox

The juxtaposition is not any accident. The Shiva statue at CERN is greater than a cultural artefact. It stands as a silent acknowledgment of one thing physics encounters at its very limits—the inescapable actuality of paradox. The universe doesn’t conform to the neat classes that science prefers. Matter and vitality behave in unpredictable methods at the subatomic degree.

Time itself falters at T = 0, the exact second of the Big Bang, as does the query of the primordial soup.
The prevailing idea means that self-replicating, advanced amino acid-based compounds by some means emerged from the primordial soup of water and chemical substances, probably triggered by a fortuitous lightning strike. However, very like the Big Bang idea can describe occasions for T > 0 however can not clarify what occurred at T = 0, the origin of life at T = 0 stays past the attain of present scientific understanding. In this sense, T = 0 is the proverbial fly in the primordial soup.
Even if we put aside sentience—the level at which even a microbe might make a alternative between two levels of freedom—how did cells organise themselves into life types?
CERN, in its quest to decode the universe, is confronting a drawback that isn’t simply scientific—it’s existential. And so, proper outdoors its most bold experiment, stands Shiva, the cosmic dancer, as if to remind scientists that the universe will not be constructed on inflexible equations alone, however on motion, rhythm, and uncertainty.

The T = 0 Problem

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to recreate circumstances as shut as doable to the Big Bang—nevertheless it can not go all the approach again. Scientists can mannequin occasions occurring after T > 0, the second when the universe started increasing. But T = 0—the singularity itself—stays elusive.
The problem is key. General relativity, which governs large-scale physics, and quantum mechanics, which governs the smallest scales, don’t align at this level. The arithmetic collapses into infinity. The equations break down. Physics, as we all know it, ceases to perform.
It is an unsettling realisation: even at the peak of human data, we can not clarify our personal starting. The deeper we probe, the extra the reply slips by means of our grasp. The second earlier than the universe—the occasion that created time itself—stays past our grasp. This is the place Shiva’s cosmic dance turns into greater than a metaphor.

Quantum Mechanics and the Dance of Shiva

Shiva’s Tandava, his everlasting dance, represents the elementary forces that drive the universe—creation, preservation, and destruction—all occurring concurrently. It is a cosmic course of, one which echoes not solely the grand scale of the universe but additionally the unusual, counterintuitive world of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, nothing is static. An electron will not be a mounted entity however a likelihood wave. A vacuum will not be empty however a seething sea of digital particles flashing out and in of existence. At its most elementary degree, the universe will not be a place—it’s a course of.
This is the place Professor V. Balakrishnan, a distinguished physicist from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, provides one other layer to the dialogue. A famend skilled in theoretical physics and chaos idea, he explains the failure of classical language to explain the quantum world:
“These terms are meaningless when explained in classical language. The failure isn’t on the part of the quantum mechanical particle, but on the part of our language itself.”

CERN’s Shiva: A Cosmic Reminder

The Shiva statue at CERN stands as a reminder that the universe will not be static—it’s a dance. A dance of forces, particles, and vitality. A dance the place creation and destruction will not be opposites however half of the identical course of. Science could but discover the reply to T = 0. It could unlock the remaining secrets and techniques of the universe. But even then, one fact will stay: The dance will go on.