The Choreography
The cosmic dance is not random motion but is beautifully choreographed, and the movements obey the laws of nature. The most fundamental laws of physics are the conservation laws–conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and conservation of momentum. These laws control all movement, interactions, and transformations in the universe. The laws are inviolate regardless of where in the universe one looks.
Nothing new in the universe has been created since the Big Bang, but only transformed from one form to another. What appears as creation or destruction is only a transformation from one state to another by physical laws. The laws are fixed, but the dancers and the dancing change. The dance never stops.
Since Newton, four hundred years of scientific progress have led us to understand that our universe is not capricious or ruled by demons and monsters of nature; instead, it is an elegant universe governed by laws. Thanks to science, we do not fear thunderstorms or cure diseases through exorcisms. We do not believe that the earth is flat or that we are at the center of the universe.
Science has unmasked nature to reveal that behind the many forms, everything is alike. Every electron, proton, or neutron is the same as every other electron, proton, and neutron. All forms are made of the same building blocks connected and interact through forces. “We ourselves are a mere collection of fundamental particles of the universe” Stephen Hawking.[i]
At a fundamental level (particles), there is no separation between us and what is outside us. It only seems this way because of the limitations of our senses. If we had X-ray vision, we would see no separation between a chair and the person sitting on the chair.
“About 99 percent of your body is made up of atoms of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. We also contain much smaller amounts of the other essential elements for life.
While most cells in your body regenerate every seven to 15 years, many of the particles that make up those cells have existed for millions of millennia. The hydrogen atoms in you were produced in the big bang, and the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms were made in burning stars. The very heavy elements in you were made in exploding stars.
The size of an atom is governed by the average location of its electrons. Nuclei are around 100,000 times smaller than the atoms they’re housed in. If the nucleus were the size of a peanut, the atom would be about the size of a baseball stadium. If we lost all the dead space inside our atoms, we would each be able to fit into a particle of lead dust, and the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube.
⦗….⦘
As you might guess, these spaced-out particles make up only a tiny portion of your mass. The protons and neutrons inside of an atom’s nucleus are each made up of three quarks. The mass of the quarks, which comes from their interaction with the Higgs field, accounts for just a few percent of the mass of a proton or neutron. Gluons, carriers of the strong nuclear force that holds these quarks together, are entirely massless.”
If our mass doesn’t come from these particles, where does it come from? Scientists believe that almost all of our body’s mass comes from the kinetic energy of the quarks and the binding energy of the gluons. We are not this solid, substantial-looking mass; we are empty space and particles in motion. In reality, instead of being made of flesh, muscles, and bones, as our senses have us believe, we are primarily empty space and particles engaged in cosmic dance. In this dance, there is no separation between what is inside of us and what is outside. Our skin which separates us from the outside, is itself particles interacting with particles on the outside or dancing with the particles outside itself. The particles do not “know” what is inside and what is outside. Only our senses make the distinction between inside and out.”[ii]
We are entangled with everything around us in a cosmic tango. Every atom in every cell in our body is entangled with atoms in other bodies and objects in the universe.
The dance is fluid, the movement continuous, the partners (atoms) changing positions at every opportunity. The dance is endless, and the music never stops.
When I look up at the sky and see the stars against a dark sky and imagine that my body is not solid as it appears but is full of “twinkling” atoms, buzzing around and dancing in the vast empty space inside and outside of me, I am Nataraja, the dancer.
[i] (http://www.hawking.org.uk/, n.d.)
[ii] (https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-particle-physics-of-you, n.d.)
Shiva's Dance 