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."