On April 25, 2002, SCIENCE published a research paper online in its online journal, SCIENCEXPRESS [10.1126/science 1070462]. The research paper is entitled *A Cyclic Model of the Universe,* by Paul J. Steinhardt(1) and Neil Turok(2). SCIENCE has followed through by making it the focus for its present issue of 24 May 2002.

When I first read the research paper I thought that it was perhaps too controversial for SCIENCE to be willing to publish in print. But SCIENCE has surprised me by placing the topic as the illustration on the cover of its 24 MAY 2002 issue, not only having the Research Article published in this issue, but also including a number of other articles explaining it to people who are not in the fields of Astrophysics or Cosmology.

The research (which is entirely the result of a large, interesting cosmological computer program) is controversial in that it rules out the Big Bang (with all of the difficult problems associated with it, such as a beginning) and the Big Crunch, and proposes an oscillating universe which goes through expanding and collapsing phases ad infinitum. Search for it in your public library. If it does not turn up there, I would think that all university science libraries would include SCIENCE on its list of scholarly periodicals.

Anyway, SCIENCE surprised me by making it the focus of its present issue of 24 May 02. I shall be interested in the professional scientific reaction to it. However, the subscribers to SCIENCE have already had a chance to examine the research article.

If you are interested, find it in a science library. Perhaps your public library has a subscription to SCIENCE. It might take a few weeks to reach the magazine racks in the library. I read it online, but it sometimes takes a couple of weeks for the print version to reach my mailbox.

Anyway, this issue (24 MAY 02) of SCIENCE ought to raise a lot of interesting mail (letters to the editors of SCIENCE) in the coming weeks.

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"There is in the universe neither center nor circumference." Giordano Bruno Born 1548. Torched 1600.