Abstract We study quantum cosmology of the 2 D Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity with Λ > 0 and calculate Hartle-Hawking (HH) wave function for this model in minisuperspace framework. Our approach is guided by observation that JT dynamics can be mapped exactly onto Kantowski-Sachs (KS) describing a homogeneous universe spatial sections S 1 × topology. This allows us to establish JT-KS correspon...

The idea that geography affects economic performance is an old one. Easterly and some other economists have taken a particular position about the relationship between geography and development. They too have recognized the high correlation of a country’s poverty with being in a malaria-transmission region, or being landlocked, or being in an ecological zone leading to low food productivity. Tho...

President Barack Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan does not pass the tests for war that he offered in his Nobel Lecture. Afghanistan is being preyed upon by a limited insurgency that feeds on Afghanistan’s poverty and desperation. Most Afghans do not support the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but are vulnerable to their pressures. Young unemployed men often join militant factions out of the need to earn a ...