CERN and Lord Shiva

India is a land of anomalies. We have probably some of the best scientists in the world straddling right along with some of the most superstitious and religious populations. Modern living is often found in homes which are seeped in traditions and rituals. And that probably is the single best explanation for why we see a huge, mammoth statue of Lord Shiva or the Nataraja on the campus of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is a European research organization.

Located in Switzerland, the same facility which houses Large Hadron Collider the world's largest and most powerful particle collider, the largest, most complex experimental facility ever built, and the largest single machine in the world; also houses a two-metre-tall statue of Lord Shiva. This was  a gift given to CERN by the Indian Govt.

The best part is that there is a plaque next to the statue, which has a beautiful quote by Fritjof Capra and that quote encapsulates all that which India stands for. The quote goes, “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics. According to quantum field theory, the dance of creation and destruction is the basis of the very existence of matter. Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. For the modern physicists then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter, the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena.”

And why did CERN put this statue of a Hindu God despite protests from Christians? CERN said that since India was one of the institute's observer states, it represented CERN’s multiculturalism with scientists from across the globe.