Quote: "In his dynamics and celestial mechanics, Newton achieved the victory for which Copernicus, Kelper, and Galileo had prepared the way."
Questions: Where there other small scale discoveries that led up to this? Did all of this somehow connect?
Comments: I'll be honest, I was sort of bored with this reading. I liked the other reading better. I'm not huge on the history of math because you can never really dive into what they were thinking. There is always that surface knowledge and statement of, "Oh, they are so great." but really, if you can't achieve something close to that feeling, it's hard to relate. Anyway though, I feel like a lot of people contributed to this discovery. I find it ironic how they all found each other's notes. But that's the human experience in general. There are mysteries that are sought out to be solved by someone willing enough. If society is against it, there is that one person who will carry on with it.

"His theoretical work, in electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and the wave theory of light, was equally revolutionary. He had really only one flaw and that was an inability to calculate the correct age of the earth."
Questions: Even though all of those topics are complex, is it possible to date back the Earth? Do we know the correct age of the Earth? Other then fossils, how can we date back the Earth?
Comments: I guess I just put this here because this guy here... had so much important and complex theoretical work but didn't get a reading on the correct age of the Earth. He worked with thermodynamics. I saw a little bit of that work and it was definitely something that I couldn't understand. In my opinion, that's a pretty elaborate theory. Same with electromagnetism. If he didn't come up with an age for the Earth, he had already changed our educational system which I would see as an accomplishment already. Furthermore, he came up with theories that almost directly related to the world like theory of light; we have the Sun that's important to our Earth's deterioration and nourishment.

"He coined the term for dinosauria in 1841. It means "terrible lizard" and was a curiously inapt name. Dinosaurs, as we now know, weren't all terrible-some were no bigger than rabbits and probably extremely retiring."
Questions: Why did he use a name for a lizard instead of another animal? By that time, how many dinosaur fossils was found? How did dinosaurs develop? What did they develop from?
Comments: I just found this interesting I suppose. I'll be honest, this chapter wasn't very interesting when I looked through it. I found more interest in the whole Big Bang Theory rather then thinking about the age of the Earth. Either way, like what one of my questions say, how did they develop? I think it sort of jumped in there as a side note of the age of the Earth. I suppose we can only date back to animals that actually left something like bones.

"…claimed that he had solved the problem already but declined now to share it on the interesting and inventive grounds that it would rob others of the satisfaction of discovering the answer for themselves."
Questions: Does this help the world when people hold back information? To find the answer themselves, does that make people on the same level with each other?
Comments: This caught my eye quicker then most of the other quotes did. For me, I think I could relate to this on a daily basis. People always ask me for help on math, and I help them. But the thing is, am I limiting their curiosity by telling them the answer? What I find funny is that a lot of the time, no matter how many times you explain something to someone, sometimes they just never understand it. Does that mean our generation has a fluctuation in levels of knowledge so vast that there is a definable difference? This really comes to the question, "Do you think if you tell someone a package of knowledge that it helps them come up with new ideas or does it really deprive them of figuring it out?" I know I get frustrated when I don't understand something and I want help on it. But whatever knowledge I gain, I remember to a good extent. I could build on that knowledge, but some people can't. How do you break this knowledge barrier? It may also be because people aren't as curious about something as perhaps another person is.

Bryson: Chapter 2 & 3

"The universe is a big and lonely place. We can do with all the neighbors we can get."
Questions: Through our expansion, could we possibly evolve into a species that can travel space? Can we evolve to species that can tolerate the conditions of other planets? IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS?
Comments: Humor. This quote stood out to me because if you look at this on a daily scale, it's sort of true from person to person. There are very few people who can live what society calls a "fulfilling life" without talking to people, neighbors. In this world, the more people you know, the better. I feel like the universe we know are like people who just want to mingle with other universes, if they exist to our knowledge. I mean, overall, knowing things we don't is what people strive for, curiosity drives us over all else.

"Two hundred light-years is a distance so far beyond us as to be, well, just beyond us. So even if we are not really alone, in all practical tenus we are."
Comments: I found this sort of comical because it's one of those things that doesn't really tell us anything. It's like saying, "I don't want to get my water bottle that's far away because it's just so far away." I usually get irritated with this sort of stuff, but I just found it funny because when I imagined this, yes, the universe did seem a little bit bigger then just imagining a "big universe".

"A star can burn for billions of years, but it dies just once and quickly, and only a few dying stars explode. Most expire quietly, like a campfire at dawn."
Comments: This quote sort of depressed me, I'll be honest. It makes me think of people dying. Sometimes it's noticed, sometimes it's... noticed less. It's like the whole, "If a tree falls but no one is around to hear it." Point is, the tree fell. It definitely fell. I know stars don't have a consciousness, but when you think about it, life on Earth can be comparable. We live, lots of years for most of us, but then we die in one foul swoop. It just happens. There is some noise if it's a murder, propaganda and all. But all in all, most of the time it's silent. People either accept the silence or make the voice louder. I don't know, that's the initial reaction I got.

Bryson Intro: Chapter 1

"Life on Earth, you see, is not as brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it."
Questions: What is the speed we are destroying our world at versus promoting it? Is it just humans that destroy things so rapidly? How would the world be if there were no humans? Would the other less intelligent animals manage protecting nature more if we were gone? What are other organized patterns can we find around us?
Comments: I thought this was a good quote. It's a very typical message, but the wording is what caught my eye. Reading this makes you think about the past and what the future may look like. In a way, we can predict our own existence in the future seeing as there are so many patterns in the world that I did not know about. For example, mountains looked like random rocks beat down by erosion but there is also the perspective that is it simple following a fractal pathway.

"I should say that everything is just right so far. In the long term, gravity may turn out to be a little too strong, and one day it may halt the expansion of the universe and bring it collapsing in upon itself, till it crushes itself down into another singularity, possibly to start the whole process over again. "
Questions: What is the probability of this happening? Versus other apocalyptic theories, is this in the same league as possible to happen? Is it possible for gravity to expand so much that it takes a dip? Can this be shown in real life on a small scale?
Comments: I found this sort of interesting because I didn't think about the universe collapsing this way. As far as I had thought of things, I was thinking more of the destroying of the Earth rather then the universe. I have those typical notions. Meteor smash onto the Earth and wipe out existence, the sun goes supernova, the planet explodes, etc. When I think about it on the larger scale, as in the whole universe being destroyed, it has much more of an impact of what we are a part of and only how far our research can go.

"Just as there is no place where you can find the edge of the universe, so there is no place where you can stand at the center and say: 'This is where it all began.'"
Comments: This one I just found overall interesting. There is sort o a good point here. I suppose humans keep wracking their brain to find an answer. What is life? Why are we here? How did such intellect start? This is one of those things that are in debate. When I read this, it made a lot of sense in a logical and mathematical way. It's like infinity.

Other quotes for reference:
"All mine where written by men (it was always men) who held the interesting notion that everything became clear when expressed as a formula and the amusingly deluded belief that the children of American would appreciate having chapters end with a section of questions they could mull over in their own time."