The Heavens. Is it metaphor, metaphysical, material? For our opening event for the 2025/2026 season and the start of the 15th Year of the USC Harman Academy for Polymathic Study’s existence, we are setting our sights on the heavens ~ aka, the Universe ~ the universe in us and us in the universe.

We are part of the universe; if the universe is infinite, are we? Does the universe have boundaries? Is time real? Is it all material or is there more than the physical, the observable? If the universe does have an end (it did have a beginning with the Big Bang after all), does that imply a boundary? Physicist Steven Hawkings postulated that “nothing exists outside the universe.” But if this is true, then nothing exists. Can something exist that doesn’t exist? Albert Einstein said that once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. Funny guy.

To help us navigate these meta questions, we have invited an Astrophysicist, a Professor of Religion, and a Secular Chaplain to give us their takes on us in the universe and the universe in us. Ancient wisdom literature says that God has set eternity in the hearts of humankind, but [we] cannot fathom it. Well, let’s grab some pizza and give it a go.

Faculty Discussants:

David Albertson, Assoc. Professor of Religion

Vanessa Gomez Brake, Senior Assoc. Dean of Religious Life

Luke Bouma, Ph.D. Astrophysics, Princeton

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