[Formendacil]

In addition to being a fantasy nerd (mostly Tolkien, having used Narnia as a gateway drug at the tender age of 8-10), I'm also something of a science-fiction nerd. While, admittedly, I tend to hie closer to the fiction aspect than the science aspect, astronomy is one of those sciences that I am more generally interested in, so I stand with a number of those in this thread who enjoyed the connections being made. The connections made between the medieval and Greek conceptions of the music of the spheres and the music of the Ainur was not one I'd made before, though the connection seems, in hindsight, quite obvious.

With regards to the Narnia angle of the essay, I find myself wondering if Aslan's creation is really as "scientific" as Eru's. Of course, Larsen uses "scientific" in an older sense, indeed, a more appropriate sense etymologically, if one thinks of the Latin root word "to know." Nonetheless, despite the fact that Tolkien definitely plays with metaphor, I'm somewhat inclined to think that Narnia is more metaphorically-laden than Middle-earth, which is therefore somewhat more "scientific." Of course, with a knowledge of the real world (or at least of what medieval and/or modern science had concluded about it as of Lewis' day), and with the comparative guide given in Middle-earth by an author with close intellectual connections, it is easy to see how the metaphor applies.

All the same, Aslan literally sings Narnia into existence (as the eyewitnesses from our world--or should I say "earwitnesses"--can testify), whereas the music of the spheres that Larsen plays out as the cosmic acoustics are only musical by analogy, and the Ainulindalë takes place before Time, outside of Space, and is likewise only music by analogy (or because that is how the Ainur explained it to the Eldar). Different analogies, of course, but both analogies.