When I was a college student, my course of study didn’t involve very much mathematics or science. Ours was a liberal arts college, so every student was required to venture into all of the areas of study and I was required to at least sample the fields by taking a course in mathematics and another in science. For my science course, I took “Atoms to Stars,” a general overview of the scientific method with a smattering of physics, geology, astronomy and other fields. For my mathematics course, I took logic, which was, understandably also a philosophy course. I also took introductory classes in psychology which at the time, as now, a bit controversial about whether or not it is an area of pure science. Employing the scientific method and focusing on direct observation and the advancing, testing and rejecting or accepting of hypotheses through repeatable experiments, it too is a scientific endeavor in my opinion.

If I were able to spend more time in a university setting, I certainly would pursue more classes in science. I am fascinated with the work of contemporary cosmologists. I suppose that, like other so-called “soft” sciences, there is a bit of a buzz surrounding cosmology that questions whether or not it is a true science, with its rather limited possibilities for independent observations. Based on more easily recognized scientific inquiry ranging from physics to anthropology, studies in cosmology advance such enormous theories that creating studies to test them is beyond the reach of science. How do you “test” the big bang theory?

Cosmology is the study of the universe in its broadest dimensions: the study of the whole of everything in search of theories that connect the divergent theories of all of he sciences. Understanding the origin and evolution of the universe leads to inquiry about its directions and ultimate fate.

If you are going to study, the entire universe seems like a field worthy of a lifetime of inquiry. Like my field, theology, it seems unlikely that one would run out of things to study.

One of the podcasts I enjoy, “On Being” with Krista Tippett, recently featured an interview with Lisa Randall, professor of science at Harvard University. I haven’t listened to the interview yet, so am not competent to comment on it, but it came up yesterday in a conversation with a physics professor at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Unlike the professor, I am not “caught up” with contemporary study and couldn’t name the leaders in particle physics study of the top of my head. But listening to him talk about his research and his teaching fascinates me. He is patient with my questions though they must seem to be very elementary to him.

Lisa Randall is author of immensely popular and successful books including “Warped Passages” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” Her most recent book, “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs” is so popular that even giant bookseller amazon.com has trouble keeping it in stock. In the book Randall shares a bit of the theories surrounding the nature and role of dark matter in the Universe, including a so far untested theory about the role of dark matter in large scale changes in our galaxy such as the disruption of the orbit of a comet or an increase in the number of collisions between asteroids and planets. It is commonly accepted that a collision with another body in the universe was the cause of the dramatic and sudden extinction of dinosaurs on our planet.

What fascinates me about the work of Lisa Randall, and will attract me to read her books and listen to Krista Tippett’s interview with her, is the expansive nature of her ideas. I am impressed with a human mind that is capable of trying to connect what little we know of events sixty-six million years ago with the events of the present and the future. She draws from the farthest known edges of the universe and attempts to speak of the whole of the cosmos and how it affects the particularity of individual existence in a specific time and place. Its heady stuff.

Randall and my physicist friend agree that the commonly accepted term “dark matter” is not the best description of the phenomena. Perhaps “transparent” or “invisible” might be more descriptive than dark. If I understand my physicist friend correctly, what is known about dark matter comes primarily from speculation of the variances in observations of the effects of gravity. Very accurate measurements of the movements of observable particles in the universe indicate that they are subject to forces that cannot be explained by gravity from known objects alone. In order for the mathematics to work out there must be something in the Universe that exists but that has not yet been observed. What we know of dark matter is our observation of its effects on things that can be observed.

As a theologian, it does my heart good to listen to a particle physicist speculate about unobservable forces at play in the universe. Although the language is different, it is clear that both theology and physics invite their students to think of things that are beyond our grasp. From my point of view, there is an incredible amount of faith behind the search for dark matter and dark energy.

It fascinates me that we, who are so small in the vastness of the Universe, have been somehow endowed with minds that not only are capable of observing the universe, but speculating on its size, history and future. From our perch on this one planet in the midst of an enormous galaxy on the edge of an immense universe we look out and wonder about the whole of everything that is. Our observations are accurate to a degree and our mathematics precise enough that we know about the existence of things that are unseen.

One life is too short for all that there is to be learned. Perhaps, however, I might one day learn enough to have a sense of my place in the vastness of human discovery and knowledge.

However, there are a few books I’ll need to read before I get even that little piece figured out.

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