Shiva the destroyer presides over Big Bang mock-up

CERN experiment – Glimpse of Shiva’s dance?

In all his images, Lord Shiva is depicted in a human form. His body his naked and covered with ashes.  The naked body indicates that He is free from attachments to the material things of the world.  Since most things get reduced to ashes when burned, ashes symbolize the essence of all things and beings in the world.  The ashes on the body of the Lord signify that. He is the source of the entire creation which emanates from Him.

Photo Credit: Giovanni Chierico Shiva's cosmic dance at CERN in Geneva

 

 Lord Shiva is depicted as having three eyes.  The two eyes on the right and left indicate His activity in the physical world.  The third eye in the centre of the forehead symbolizes knowledge (Gnana), and is thus called the eye of wisdom or knowledge. The powerful gaze of Lord Shiva’s third eye annihilates evil, and is the reason that evil-doers fear His is third eye.

September 10, 2008, HT

The symbolism is strong. As scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva smash subatomic particles in the world’s largest experiment, Shiva, the destroyer, will be in close proximity. 

On Wednesday, a powerful particle accelerator will use massive energy surges to simulate the universe’s creation with the Big Bang. And it would not have been possible without India, says Dr Amit Roy, director, Nuclear Science Centre, Delhi. “We’ve made precision-made jacks on which the 27-km machine is resting.”

Over 100 Indian scientists from institutes like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Bhabha Atomic Energy Centre are involved in the Large Hardron Collider (LHC) project.

The Department of Atomic Energy gifted a two-metre bronze statue of the Nataraja to CERN on June 18, 2004 to celebrate the centre’s India connection.

 {The statue of Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, Dr. Aymar, DG of CERN, Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary to the Government of India.}

Indian Atomic Energy Commission boss Anil Kakodkar had then said: “The Indian scientific community is part of the quest for understanding the universe.”
{Related News:- } 

Author Fritjof Capra first drew a parallel between Shiva’s dance of creation and destruction and the dance of subatomic particles in The Tao of Physics.

A plaque next to the statue quotes Capra: “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 living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter. For modern physicists... Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter.”

Collision course| Underground

  

More about Shiva Cosmic Dance :-

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In choosing the image of Shiva Nataraja, the Indian Government has acknowledged the profound significance of the metaphor of Shiva’s dance for the cosmic dance of subatomic particles, which is observed and analyzed by CERN’s physicists. The parallel between Shiva’s dance and the dance of subatomic particles was first discussed by Fritjof Capra in 1972 in an article titled ‘The Dance of Shiva: The Hindu View of Matter in the Light of Modern Physics Shiva’s cosmic dance then became a central metaphor in Capra’s international bestseller The Tao of Physics, first published in 1975 and still in print in over 40 editions around the world.

‘The Wave Structure of Matter Explains the Atomic Structure of Matter. The ‘Particle’ as the Wave-Center of a Spherical Standing Wave in Space explains the cosmic dance of Nataraja’

— FRITJOF CAPRA(1939)

A special plaque next to the Shiva statue at CERN in Geneva explains the significance of the metaphor of Shiva’s cosmic dance with several quotations from The Tao of Physics. Here is a quotation from Fritjof Capra that has been put in that special plaque ‘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 for the modern physicists, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created different forms of visual images of dancing Shiva 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.’

Read the complete article on  Shiva:-

• The Third Eye 
• Cosmic Dance of Shiva
  

} 

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• How Dhyan Meditation can lead the way to understand the Mystery of Shiva-Shakti, Particle-Antiparticle, Dark Matter and Consciousness ? 
• Non Dualism Principle by Shankar

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Russians claim to have built McFadden-style EM field consciousness hardware

Another Step Towards Artificial Intelligence

13.02.2008

Typical structure of neuron

Fellows of experimental physics department of Ural University of Physics and technology have developed necessary hardware components for “electromagnetic consciousness” according CEMI (consciousness electromagnetic information field) theory of Johnjoe McFadden.
     
      Russian think tank created a model of neural network on neurons (EM (electromagnetic) neurons) with additional channels for information exchange via electromagnetic field and patented it (patent No. 2309457 “Neural field model”).
     
      Channels for interaction via electromagnetic field are implemented in an original construction of neural axon, looking like a chain of in-series radio-frequency pulse self oscillators with self-quenching circuits and radio-pulse envelope separators. The concept of EM neurons is almost the same like McFadden’s CEMI theory, but with following exception: mechanism of information exchange process between neurons via EM field is different.
     
      EM neurons have much in common with its biological prototype and correspond with usual processes of neurophysiology.
     
      However, the issue of spontaneous generation of consciousness in networks with this type of architecture remains open.

Source:- 

• Another Step Towards AI 

• Russians claim to have built McFadden-style EM field consciousness hardware (Feb 2008)

Conscious Mind is the Brain's Electromagnetic Field : Theory Says

Our minds are radios

Brainwaves: em field connects the neurones

CONSCIOUSNESS, we might all agree, is precious stuff: it what sets us apart from earthworms and pocket calculators, and allows us to build cathedrals and argue with football referees. But what is this faculty that we’re so proud of? How the conscious mind works, where it’s located, and why it evolved all the fundamental questions are still entirely unresolved. Neuroscience has failed to discover any region or structure of the brain specialising in conscious thinking could it be because there isn’t one?

Professor Johnjoe McFadden, of Surrey University, has thrown his hat into the ring with a theory equating the conscious mind with the brain’s electromagnetic (em) field. The theory proposes a solution to one of the great puzzles of neuroscience: how conscious brain activity that we experience as thought and emotion differs from unconscious brain activity, and how the two interact. In McFadden’s model, our conscious thoughts are composed of fluctuations in a distributed em field a kind of low-wattage local radio network. The subconscious mind, controlling autonomous activity such as walking or balancing on a chair, is wired into neural pathways in the brain itself, which interact with the em field when a conscious decision is made.

McFadden, of Surrey’s School of Biomedical and Life Sciences, is confident that his theory can withstand the most rigorous interrogations of scientists and philosophers. He claims: “the theory solves many previously intractable problems of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of mind, free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life and death.”

The key to McFadden’s theory is the synchronous firing of neurones, which act to ‘switch on’ conscious thought in the brain’s em field when enough of them fire simultaneously. When we see an object, signals from our retina travel along nerves as waves of electrically charged ions. When they reach the nerve terminus the signal jumps to the next nerve via chemical neurotransmitters. The receiving nerve decides whether or not it will fire, based on the number of firing ‘votes’ it receives from its upstream nerves. Familiar patterns experiences or actions that the brain has learned are hard-wired into neural pathways, and produce correspondingly lower neuronal vote counts; only when an experience is unfamiliar or decision-making is required, do enough neurones fire to stimulate conscious activity in the em field.

McFadden uses the experience of driving along a familiar route as an example of how this interaction occurs. While driving home from work our conscious minds may be busy reviewing the events of the day; at the same time, we are watching traffic, changing gear and following the road, without being aware of these operations. Yet if we encounter a hazardous situation such as a child in the road we instantly become aware of the child, the road, the motor operations of driving, and thereafter slow down to drive more carefully under conscious control. The sudden rush of new information (the child) sparks synchronous firing of fresh neurones, stimulating the conscious mind to ‘take over’ at the wheel.

The em field theory also offers an explanation of the role of consciousness in the learning process. McFadden points to the example of a learner driver: the first (very conscious) fumblings are transformed through constant practice into automatic actions. The neural networks driving unlearnt activity are in an undecided state a small nudge from the brain’s em field can topple them towards or away from firing. As the conscious mind perfects the new activity, the em field ‘fine-tunes’ the neural pathways: the neurones are connected so that as they fire together, they wire together, to form stronger connections. After practice, the influence of the field becomes dispensable. The activity is learnt and may thereafter be performed unconsciously.

One of the fundamental questions of consciousness, known as the binding problem, can be explained by looking at a tree. Neurobiology has shown that the packets of visual information the individual leaves and branches are scattered amongst millions of widely separated neurones. Neuroscientists are seeking to explain where in the brain all those leaves are stuck together to form the conscious impression of a whole tree. How does our brain bind information to generate consciousness?

McFadden argues that every time a nerve fires, the electrical activity sends a signal to the em field. The information that reaches the em field is automatically bound together with all the other signals in the brain the characteristic binding process of consciousness. McFadden and, independently, the New Zealand-based neurobiologist Sue Pockett, argue that, rather than functioning simply as an information sink, the em field is consciousness: it selectively controls behaviour by pushing some neurones towards firing and others away from firing. This influence, McFadden proposes, is the physical manifestation of our conscious will.

The challenge for the scientific community is now to upset McFadden’s grandiose convictions by disproving the em field theory, known in neuroscience as the conscious electromagnetic information field (cemi field) theory. Pockett identifies a potential problem: that present measurements seem to show a variable relationship between the brain’s em field and sensation. Another key objection to an em field theory of consciousness is that if our minds are electromagnetic, why don’t we pass out when we walk under an electrical cable or any other source of external electromagnetic fields? The answer, according to McFadden, is that our skin, skull and cerebrospinal fluid shield us from external electric fields.

McFadden looks forward to the intense critical scrutiny that is bound to follow publication. He concludes: “The conscious electromagnetic information field is at present still a theory. But if true, there are many fascinating implications for the concept of free will, the nature of creativity or spirituality, consciousness in animals and even the significance of life and death. The theory explains why conscious actions feel so different from unconscious ones it is because they plug into the vast pool of information held in the brain’s em field.”

Source:-   

• New Theory Says Conscious Mind is EM Field of Brain
• Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field

Worlds Biggest Scientific Experiment - The Big Bang - on 9/10

Scientists look to the spin-offs of a miniature ‘big bang’

By Clive Cookson

Published: September 4 2008 18:27 | Last updated: September 4 2008 18:27

In their quest to understand the secrets of the universe, physicists are about to launch their biggest experiment. Next Wednesday, the first atoms will race round a 27km track beneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva, at almost the speed of light.

It will be the first step towards the real moment of truth for the $8bn (£4.5bn, €5.6bn) Large Hadron Collider. In a few weeks, two beams of protons – hydrogen nuclei – will accelerate in opposite directions and smash together, creating in miniature the intense energies of the newborn universe just after the “big bang” some 14bn years ago.

Scientists at Cern, the European centre for particle physics, hope the LHC will reveal new forces and even extra dimensions of space and time. It may also enable researchers to produce and study miniature black holes.

Yet the LHC may eventually be a final flourish for Cern – and indeed for the whole of particle physics – after a glorious half-century in which increasingly powerful atom smashers enabled scientists to build up a coherent, though incomplete, understanding of the universe, based on studying the smallest building blocks of matter.

Some influential scientists are already suggesting that the world will not be able to fund another large-scale accelerator. “We need a re-evaluation,” says Sir David King, former UK chief scientist. “We have to ask: what is the end-point for particle physics? How big do we have to go?”

In an increasingly pragmatic world, governments have already been directing more money to applied science and technology, while cutting spending on fields aimed essentially at advancing knowledge for its own sake. The cancellation of the US Superconducting Super Collider in Texas 15 years ago left Cern the field’s undisputed global centre.

Lyn Evans, LHC project leader and a 38-year Cern veteran, says: “The only way we justify our existence is to build more and more powerful machines on a budget that is constant in real terms.”

Not surprisingly, Cern scientists often feel compelled to defend their spending in terms of its direct spin-offs, such as the high-speed computing grid that will handle the vast data flow from LHC. (Cern also loses no opportunity to remind people that the world wide web was invented there in 1989.) But “the real reason is to satisfy intellectual curiosity,” says Jos Engelen, Cern chief scientist.

Big spin-offs from the LHC, if any, will occur far in the future, in ways that we cannot predict or even comprehend today. “Who is to say that the strong nuclear force [being investigated by Cern] will not be propelling spaceships across the galaxy in 300 years?” asks David Evans, senior scientist at Alice, one of four giant underground detectors built to analyse the particles produced by LHC collisions.

Putting a comprehensible intellectual case for the LHC is extremely difficult if not impossible. Yet particle physicists have to make the effort. Government funding decisions today depend on public understanding and political support much more than they did after the second world war, when European governments set up Cern as a centre for peaceful research into atomic physics.

At the heart of the case is the “standard model” – a framework of fundamental particles and forces that provides a partial explanation for the way the universe works but does not cover gravity. It also fails to account for recent observations such as the mysterious “dark matter” that appears to dominate the universe.

First order of business for the LHC will be to fill in gaps in the standard model. The best known gap is what gives matter its mass. Favourite here is the fabled Higgs boson, a particle originally proposed in the 1960s, which – if it exists – should be accessible within the LHC’s energy range.

But physicists disagree about where the LHC is most likely to move the field next. Robert Aymar, Cern’s director-general, likes supersymmetry. According to this theory the LHC should be able to make and detect at least the “neutralino” – a massive yet elusive particle that is a leading candidate for filling the universe with dark matter.

His deputy Jos Engelen, on the other hand, is rather dismissive of this. He is a fan of string theory, according to which our four familiar dimensions of space and time conceal several extra dimensions, which might conceivably open up in the extreme conditions of LHC collisions. Under these circumstances, the particles associated with gravity might reveal themselves for the first time.

Slightly easier for the lay mind to understand is the prospect that the LHC will produce microscopic black holes – tiny concentrations of matter so dense that their gravity prevents light escaping. Then Stephen Hawking, the leading black hole theorist, could expect to win a Nobel prize.

However, black holes carry a fear factor that has provoked lawsuits in the US and Europe seeking to stop the LHC from opening. The project’s opponents argue that the collisions could generate black holes capable of swallowing up the whole earth.

Cern recognises that there is genuine concern but insists that the risk of catastrophe is zero. “If you look at the blogosphere, you will find a lot of people taking the threat seriously,” says John Ellis, Cern’s leading theoretician. “But there is no evidence for any conceivable threat from the LHC.”

While large black holes at the centre of galaxies can suck up whole stars, their microscopic counterparts would be unstable and disappear, Cern insists.

The best outcome would be for the LHC to spring a stupendous surprise that does not threaten the planet. But particle physicists would not want the project to answer all the big questions. From their point of view, the universe should be left with enough secrets to justify spending billions of dollars on the next giant experiment.

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• Creating Big Bang to Understand Physics
• Worlds Biggest Scientific Experiment - Big Bang
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North pole may be ice-free by 2013

North pole may be ice-free by 2013
11 Aug 2008, 0042 hrs IST,PTI

LONDON: The meltdown in the Arctic is speeding up and as a result the north pole could be ice-free by 2013 instead of in 60 years' time as earlier predicted, scientists have warned.

Their apprehensions are based on computer studies of satellite images that reveal that ice at north pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week - the disappearance is said to have exceeded the record loss of more than a million square kilometres in 2007 as global warming tightened its grip.

"It does not really matter whether 2007 or 2008 is the worst year on record for Arctic sea ice.

"The crucial point is that ice is clearly not building up enough over winter to restore cover and that when you combine current estimates of ice thickness with the extent of the ice cap, you get a very clear indication that the Arctic is going to be ice-free in summer in five years.

"And when that happens, there will be consequences," British newspaper The Observer quoted Prof Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey as saying.

Using the US navy supercomputers, his team produced a forecast which indicated that by 2013 there will be no ice in the Arctic - other than a few outcrops on islands near Greenland and Canada between mid-July and mid-September.

Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University added: "The most detailed computer models suggest the Arctic's summer ice is going to last for only a few more years - and given what we have seen happen last week, I think they are probably correct."

Source:- Only 5 years left for North Pole due to Global Warming