Is that a region in spacetime in which tidal gravitational forces become infinite, like a black hole or the big bang?
Gloss “erdë” by Eldamo Import
erdë
noun. singularity
Variations
- ërdë ✧ MR/470
Derivations
- √ER “one, single, alone, one, single, alone; [ᴹ√] be alone, deprived; [ᴱ√] remain alone”
Given the Elven perspective on the sky I’d have to give a very probable “no”.
Shure, and if we consider the development stage of (astro-)physics in most stages of Tolkien's live (maybe except the last few years), it will be a fortiori no, but we can't deny that it is the same word, and I never heard it in another context ...
PS. No one sayd how big Ilmen is. There's no reason why it shouldn't be able to have a radius of a few billion lightyears, like our's has it too. Why not? And if so: Why not with black holes?
The longer I think about it the more I start thinking that the universe structure of lotr is not very different from ours. Vista is the Earth's atmosphere and Ilmen is every other part of the universe. In our universe it is impossible to reach the limit, because of space warp and the theory of relativity. So, if there was something behind the area of stars (Ilmen) in our universe (like Vaiya/Ilurambar), we could not see/reach it unless we had divine power to break the laws of nature (like Melcor, Ulmo, the Valar and Earendil with his Silmaril and ship). The only big difference between Ea and our universe is that Ea has a geocentric world system. Why souldn't Ea have black holes too?
Maybe the Valar told the inquisitive Noldor some basics of astrophysics and mentioned black holes ... ok, now I'm definitely joking, but we "could" use this word "also" in that way, couldn't we?
Damned. It would be very funny to explain physics not in Latin but "Elf-Latin". Unfortunately that won't be possible without many many neologisms ...