V. V. Raman

Darshana Jolts: The Microcosm: The world of quantum mechanics

From ancient times, the division of the world into a macrocosm and a microcosm has been a feature in many cultures. There are references to it in Pythagorean and Platonic thought1. In a classical Hindu worldview, there is an external physical world which is called Shivaloka, and an inner world of consciousness called Antarloka2. The idea of the microcosm and macrocosm was also popular in medieval alchemy where the microcosm was imagined to be more complex than the macrocosm, and each was in a state of vibration. Medieval Christian thinkers like Boethius, Robert Fludd and Sir Thomas Browne were among the many who spoke of two such worlds3.