Bryson reading chapter 2 QQC

Quote: "A few astronomers continue to think there may be a Planet X out there—a real whopper, perhaps as much as ten times the size of Jupiter, but so far out as to be invisible to us. (It would receive so little sunlight that it would have almost none to reflect.) The idea is that it wouldn’t be a conventional planet like Jupiter  or Saturn—it’s much too far away for that; we’re talking perhaps 4.5 trillion miles—but more like a sun that never quite made it. Most star systems in the cosmos are binary (double-starred), which makes our solitary sun a slight oddity."

Comment: I think the idea of a vary large planet is interesting and very possible, but until proof is found, I remain skeptical towards the matter. I do find it interesting that most star systems consist of pairs of stars (i.e. two suns) while ours is unary consisting of individual stars (i.e. one sun).

Question: How do the binary star systems affect the solar system in comparison to unary star systems? Do they affect things like shape, gravity, orbit, and other aspects? How are these aspects affected?

Bryson reading intro and chapter 1 QQC

Quote: 

"One notion is that perhaps the singularity was the relic of an earlier collapsing universe―that we're just one of an eternal cycle of expanding and collapsing universes, like the bladder on an oxygen machine."

Comment:

I think this is a very interesting and cool idea―the thought that as an individual, we are just one of the many chapters in the story of life, as life, we are just one of the many chapters in the story of the universe, and as the universe, we are just one of the many chapters that are created from each expansion of the universe. This one concept seems like enough to base a setting for a movie (I would totally go watch this movie).

Question:

As I was taught it many years ago, the Big Bang theory was an origin theory of sorts in that it explained how the universe began, but now it seems as though an origin story would go deeper than our universe. It would go deeper than all the universes that expanded and condensed before us. What would be the reason that a universe would re-compact itself after expanding? Every time a universe re-expands, is there always going to be at least one planet that can and will support life before the universe re-compacts itself? Based on this theory, do we have an estimate as to when the universe will re-compact to the spec that it was before? Based on this theory, can we really say that the universe is infinitely large?