Cosmology And Myth

Some basic modern cosmological knowledge is common to all contemporary sf, e.g.:

"'The galaxies were formed by the condensation of monstrous hydrogen clouds.'"

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), III, p. 18.

Sf sometimes describes future periods when such knowledge is lost or becomes legendary:

"...passing references in old books did seem to confirm the idea held by latter-day theorists, that stars and planets condensed out of interstellar gas and dust."

-"A Tragedy of Errors," p. 513.

And this reminds us of the Norse creation myth which is the most scientific and philosophical of such myths. There was a void. Fundamental physical forces, heat and cold, met. Life condensed. Poul Anderson adapted Norse myths in works of fantasy and his sf characters remember those same myths:

"He remembered the old, old myth of the Yawning Gap, where fire and ice arose and out of them the Nine Worlds, which were doomed in the end to return to fire and ice; and he shivered."

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 756.

"'Fellow name of Thor. He has a red beard...'"

-World Without Stars, II, p. 14.

Scientific knowledge might degenerate into myth although we hope not. Condensation in a vacuum...