★ The night sky may appear static, but the universe is constantly expanding. The true landscape of the cosmos may be far more bizarre than we can imagine.
★ This book is authored by the world-renowned astrophysicist, cosmologist, and doctor of physics and mathematics, as well as a writer of scientific and science fiction books, Nikolai Goryachev. He is a recipient of the U.S. National Research Council Award, the American Astronomical Society Award, and the youngest winner of the Soviet State Prize.
★ The oscillating universe model proposed in this book was developed in collaboration with Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Mather and distinguished scientists Alexander Vasilkov and Sergei Turbashev. Nikolai Goryachev acknowledges that without their contributions, the oscillating universe model would be incomplete, and this book would not have come to fruition. Thus, in a way, they are also co-authors of this work.
★ The first edition was published by Chelyabinsk State University Press in 2023. The second edition, with additions and corrections, is set to be published in 2024.
★ Like the works of Sean Carroll, Stephen Hawking, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, this book explains key cosmological issues in an accessible manner and addresses them using the oscillating universe theory. It is not only significant for physics students and experts but also comprehensible to general readers interested in the cosmos.
★ The German edition of this book will be published by Springer, one of the world's most influential scientific and technical publishing groups.
★ The English textbook edition will be published by Elsevier.

We are living in an era of cosmological revolution. The discovery of gravitational waves generated by the merger of multiple stellar-mass black holes in 2015 has helped explain the long-unresolved issue of "dark matter" that had remained a mystery for over half a century. This discovery has spurred the development of an oscillating universe model, in which gravitational radiation and black holes play a key role in its dynamics.

What makes the universe a universe? Do black holes create the universe? How do black holes influence the universe? Will black holes devour the universe? Is the universe in a constant cycle? Do we exist in countless universes? Regarding the origin of the universe, the currently accepted theory is that the universe was formed 13.8 billion years ago from a singularity through the Big Bang and has been expanding ever since. However, the research of Nikolai Goryachev aims to break this traditional singular universe model. He suggests that the universe continuously expands through explosions and contracts through compression, much like a person inflating and deflating a balloon. Moreover, this expansion and contraction occur cyclically. Although our universe has already undergone countless such cycles, and it remains unknown when this cycle first emerged, humanity holds hope of witnessing this process.

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed the movement distances of near-Earth objects and stars. What is particularly noteworthy is the astronomical revolution regarding gravitational waves in 2016. Gravitational wave detectors in the United States received dozens of signals with varying statistical significance, among which a dozen were highly credible. Almost all these gravitational waves were caused by the merger of two black holes. So, where did so many black holes come from? Clearly, they must have some unexpected origin, and researchers have proposed possible sources for them. According to this idea, the existing universe has undergone numerous cycles of contraction and expansion. Our current cycle is not the first; it is merely one of countless cycles. In the first phase of each cycle, our universe expands—a process that is currently ongoing. Then, in the second phase, the universe begins to contract, causing the distances between black holes to gradually shrink. In the final stage of this contraction cycle, the diameter of the universe becomes larger than the current 93 billion light-years.

The author believes that the history of the universe before the Big Bang is crucial to our cosmic cycle. The remnants of past cycles are abundantly scattered around, with the primary remnants being massive black holes. This book is the first to describe cyclical cosmology, explaining the physical mechanism of the Big Bang and the phenomenon of the accelerated expansion of the universe today (the positive cosmological constant or "dark energy" phenomenon). The book provides an accessible explanation of key cosmological issues and addresses them using the oscillating universe theory, making it understandable to a broad audience interested in this topic. The appendix contains a detailed mathematical description of an oscillating universe with variable gravitational mass.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Goryachev (1959)
World-renowned astrophysicist, cosmologist, doctor of physics and mathematics, and writer of scientific and science fiction books.

He graduated from the Department of Physics at Chelyabinsk State University in 1981, completed his postgraduate studies at the Astronomy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1986, and earned his Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from Moscow State University in 1990. He worked at the Simeiz Observatory for 12 years and received the last Soviet State Prize in Astrophysics for his prediction of Uranus’s satellites. At the time, Nikolai Goryachev was only 30 years old, making him one of the youngest recipients of this award. In 1998, he was honored for his research on zodiacal dust and received an invitation from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center under the guidance of Nobel Prize winner John Mather. He also received an award from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Together with John Mather, he theoretically predicted exoplanets near Vega and Epsilon Eridani.

Asteroid 4654 Gor'kavyj is named after him, a designation approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1997. The IAU stated that it was "named in honor of Nikolai Nikolaevich Goryachev, an employee of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, a dynamicist and cosmologist, who created a unified model of the formation of the satellite systems of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune and explained the origin of the retrograde satellites of giant planets and the characteristics of Neptune’s rings." Since 2011, he has been working on the NASA Suomi satellite team. He is also the director of the private Greenwich Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Virginia.

Nikolai Goryachev has authored over one hundred scientific papers and multiple scientific monographs, as well as numerous scientific publications and science fiction books for both adults and children. His works include Physics of Planetary Rings: Celestial Mechanics of Continua, The Chelyabinsk Super Bolide, The Oscillating Universe, Celestial Mechanics, The Creator of Time, Interstellar Vitamins, The Girl with Crystal Hair, and Astrovichka, among others.

【Awards and Honors】
1989: Soviet State Prize
1992: American Astronomical Society Award
1993–1995: Two-time recipient of the International Science Foundation Award
1993–1998: Two grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research
1998–2000: U.S. National Research Council Award
2009: Won the "Stalker" Award in the "Image of the Future" category for The Girl with Crystal Hair (the first book in the Astrovichka series). Shortlisted for the "Cherished Dream" Children's Book Literary Award in the "Best Work of Science Fiction or Fantasy" category.
2010: Won the "Running on the Waves" Award for Best Female Character in Fantasy for the character Niki in Astrovichka.
2012: Received the "Radiant Past" People's Science Achievement Award from the Chelyabinsk Regional Government and the Oleg Mityaev Foundation.
2014: NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievements
2021: Received the Belyaev Prize for his collection of scientific fairy tales, including Interstellar Vitamins (2012), Celestial Mechanics (2013), The Creator of Time (2014), and others.