What if the big-bang theory is wrong? Recently, Princeton Universityphysicist Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok at Cambridge introduced the``cyclic theory" of the early universe. In this picture, space and timeexist forever. The big bang is not the beginning of time. Rather, it is abridge to a pre-existing contracting era. Paul J. Steinhardt is the AlbertEinstein Professor in Science at Princeton University, a member of thefaculty in both the Department of Physics and in the Department ofAstrophysical Sciences. He received his B.S. in Physics at Caltech in 1974;his M.A. in Physics in 1975 and Ph.D. in Physics in 1978 at HarvardUniversity. He is a Fellow in the American Physical Society and a member ofthe National Academy of Sciences.