Note: This fic was written in part as a response to a challenge that Joan Milligan posted on her LiveJournal, a while back: to write a story combining sex and mathematics.
The Physics of Mandos
An Interpretation by Una Hale
"The Fabric of Space-time" is a somewhat strange fic. While the author claims that it was inspired by a challenge to combine sex and mathematics, it turned out to be more a combination of sex and physics, of which the author's knowledge is confessedly highly limited and rudimentary.
It is, of course, an alternative universe story. In fact, one may say that it is so in a rather curiously literal way. The Halls of Mandos, after all, is an unusual place. We know that it is a part of Arda, "westward in Valinor". It is said in the Valaquenta that
Vairë the Weaver...weaves all things that have ever been in Time into her storied webs, and the halls of Mandos that ever widen as the ages pass are clothed with them.
In other words, Mandos always expands with the passage of time. But there is a problem with this: surely it will take up vast tracts of Valinor, if that is the case?
One solution I suspect that the author would like to suggest is that in fact, the Halls of Mandos do not expand in the way that we are accustomed to think of objects expanding, in relation to the space around it. Rather, it is possible that it is the space within the Halls of Mandos that expands, while to an outside observer, the size of the Halls always stays the same. This is very similar to the expansion of our own universe, according to modern theories of physics, and one part of what the author meant by saying that Mandos was an universe of its own.
There is another fact which supports the analogy between Mandos and the universe. We know that no one, not even Melkor, has ever been able to leave the Halls of Mandos without being released by Námo. And by definition, one of the properties of an universe is that one cannot escape it, for there is no "outside" of the universe that can be observed by us. Indeed, these properties of Mandos fit the scenario of "daughter universes" proposed by some physicists, in which a patch of space undergoes a rapid expansionary phase, becoming an universe of its own. (A fun and informative book about these matters is The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene.) From this point of view, it is no great stretch, at least metaphorically, to imagine that the tapestries woven by Vairë are "the very fabric of space-time", within the daughter universe.
Of course, the Halls of Mandos do not truly form a universe. People have been able to leave it, after all. It is not likely that one can formulate a rigorous theory to describe the Halls, since one would imagine that its physical properties and laws are controlled and easily changed by Námo and (especially) Vairë. Also, at the very least, one would need a theory to describe the physics of the fëar, which are, in a way, outside the scope of physics by definition.
A few other notes. Firstly, about the flesh-and-blood shapes of the Valar, here is what the Ainulindal tells us:
Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped, they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar, save only in majesty and splendour. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being.
In this story, Námo happens to be in flesh and blood form throughout. However, the conjecture is that the joining would be possible for them, even without physical forms. One should point out that the author has attempted, in a very pale and inadequate way, to show a little of Vairë's power, but almost none of Námo's.
The description of Vairë's tapestries was clearly inspired by "The Aleph", by Jorge Luis Borges.
As Newton tells us, it is white light that becomes a full spectrum when passed through a prism.
Finally, the author appeared to have tried to incorporate the following terms into the first chapter of this fic. Most are mathematical, a few are from physics, and a number of them are in rather badly mangled forms.
Suspended, perfect, uncountable, row, fine, span, space, infinitesimal perturbation, string, heart, face, laced, line, infinity, imaginary, column, interior, path, smooth, tessellation, cycles, alternating sequence, manifold, curve, flow, linear, arc, spin, loop, cusp, point, ramification, split, spectrum, lattice, dimension, enumerate, variety, extended, permute, complexity, dense, range, moonshine, circle, small, field, mirror symmetry, towers, atom, spiral, integral, universe, knot, parabola, lemniscate, sign, game, trace, characteristic, matrix, irrational, complete, form, matter, connected, star, lightyear, end, fibre, winding, join, converge, root, tree, thick, braid, full, near, representation, transform, fixed, Reality, reflection, incompleteness, weak, lift, closed, edge, pullback, angle, wreath, simple, strong, universe change, measure, worldsheet, pushforward, orientation, space-time, probability cloud, quantum effects, pure, chaos, submerge, free, curl, open, concavity, curvature, limit, surface, vertex, centre, constant, union, finite, unbounded, boundary, continuous, empty.