He also formulated the Novikov self-consistency principle in the mid-1980s, a contribution to the theory of time travel.

Novikov moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he worked and taught at the Niels Bohr Institute.

From 1974 to 1990 he was head of the Department of Relativistic Astrophysics at the Russian Space Research Institute in Moscow.

He is awarded the First John Archibald Wheeler Prize (2020), together with physicist Kip Thorne (Caltech) and Oxford University professor Roger Penrose.

This award is presented for his contribution to the development of the general theory of relativity and the physics of black holes.