Shiva's Dance (My Next Tattoo)

Mary and I watched a documentary called Particle Fever, about the search for the Higgs-Boson particle, also known as the God particle.  It takes place in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

Outside that facility is a 2m tall statue of the Indian deity Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of Dance.  The statue, symbolizing Shiva's cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was given to CERN by the Indian government to celebrate the research center's long association with India.

As soon as I saw that, I said, "THAT is my next tattoo!"

The parallel between Shiva's dance and the dance of subatomic particles was first discussed by Fritjof Capra and became a central metaphor in Capra's international bestseller (and one of my favorite books) The Tao of Physics. 

Capra explained that "Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter," and that "For the modern physicists, then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter."

I’m commissioning Tattoo Temple, in Hong Kong, to do the tattoo for me.  They have a waiting list of about a year, but I will definitely leave China with a new tattoo on my back.

Mary is such a geek when it comes to watching documentaries like that, that she wants to become a physicist, and work at CERN after she graduates.  She will need to change her citizenship to something in the European Union, however, because they simply do not employ Americans.

Still... if Geneva is on my bid list in January, it will be my first choice!