Quotes from Albert Einstein

• "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
• "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
• "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
• "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
• "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
• "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
• "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
• "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
• "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
• "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
• "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
• "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
• "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
• "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
• "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
• "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
• "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
• "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
• "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
• "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
• "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
• "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
• "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
• "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
• "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
• "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
• "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
• "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
• "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
• "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
• "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
• "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
• "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
• "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
• "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
• "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
  
  

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Places of Interest at Sumatra (part 2)

KERINCI SEBLAT NATIONAL PARK

Kerinci Seblat National Park is the largest National Park in Sumatra Indonesia covering 1.5 million hectares. Parts of the park are in West Sumatra and South Sumatra. In this national park, live up to 129 species of birds, 36 mammalians with 24 protected, 10 species of reptiles, 6 species of amphibians, and 8 species of primates. There are also 4000 floras dominated by family of Dipterocarpaceae. Some of these are highly endangered, especially the animals like Sumatera Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatraensis), Wild Mountain Goat (Capricornis sumatraensis), Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatraensis), Sumatran Elephant (Elephanus maximus sumatranus), Dead Flower (Amorphophallus titanum) and also the largest flower in the world, Rafflesia Flower (Rafflesia arnoldi). Ecologically, Kerinci Seblat National Park is a conservation area with prime complete ecosystem, starting from low rainforest area, up to sub-alpine area. Some areas may represent high wetland like Peat Lake, freshwater swamp and volcanogenic lake.

MOUNT KERINCI

Mount Kerinci is the highest volcano in Indonesia, and the highest peak in Sumatra.It is located in Province of Jambi, the west central part of the island, in the Pegunungan/Bukit Barisan, near the west coast, and is about 130 km (81 mi) south of Padang. It is the most prominent feature of the terrain of Kerinci Seblat National Park, with pine-forested slopes rising 2,400-3,300 metres above the surrounding basin, and a cone 13 km (8 mi) wide and 25 km (16 mi) long at the base, elongated in the north-south direction. At the summit there is a deep 600 m (1,969 ft) wide crater, often partially filled with green-yellow water.Kerinci is more active than most Indonesian volcanoes, with nearly annual phreatic eruptions. Kerinci last erupted in 2004, and continues to spew clouds of sulphurous smoke, with plumes reaching as high as 1,000 m (3,281 ft) above the summit. While there is farmland in the area, and a tea plantation on its southern slope, Kerinci, being located in an Indonesian national park, and perhaps out of respect for its frequent growlings as well, sits in an area that is sparsely populated by Indonesian population-density standards.Kerinci can be climbed from the village of Kersik Tuo, 6 or 7 hours away from Padang by car or bus. The climb and descent normally takes 3 days and 2 nights, if you choose to go to the summit. You may also choose to go up only till Camp 2 or 2.5, skipping the summit attempt which is a night climb; and take 2 days and 1 night instead. As of November 2007, the alert level for Kerinci was raised to Level 2- Orange, due to black smog seen coming out of the crater. But climbing the volcano is still relatively safe and allowed; though you may not climb any further than 1km to the crater. Kerinci’s terrain consists of thick jungle, it can get muddy and slippery even if there are only mild drizzles, which may occur occasionally even during the dry season. To climb the volcano you need a guide, for there have been rare cases of people disappearing after attempting to trek alone.

WEH ISLAND

Weh is a beautiful island located at the north western tip of Sumatra. It presents the western most part of the Indonesian archipelago – the world’s largest, stretching some 4.000 km to the east. The great attraction of this small island is its scenic beauty. Weh’s rugged terrain, rocky caves, harbour views, hillside lookouts, marvellous beaches, and sleepy traditional villages all attest to these. The island of Weh is surrounded by other smaller islands including Klah, Rubiah, Seulako, and Rondo. Together, all these islands cover an area of 154 square kilometers with the population concentrated on the main island of Weh. Among the smaller island, Rubiah is the most well known. This small 17 Ha island was once the site of a special hospital for psychic therapy, and thereafter an important location of quarantine for Indonesian Muslims performing their pilgrimage of Hajj to Mecca. Since then this tiny island has been made famous by the spectacular coral reefs that surrounded it.

MOUNT KRAKATAU

The island group of Krakatoa (or Krakatau) lies in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. Krakatoa is infamous for its violent Plinian eruption in 1883, that destroyed the previous volcanic edifice and enlarged its caldera. Collapse of the former volcanic edifice, perhaps in 416 AD, had formed a 7-km-wide caldera. Remnants of this ancestral volcano are preserved in Verlaten and Lang Islands; subsequently Rakata, Danan and Perbuwatan volcanoes were formed, coalescing to create the pre-1883 Krakatoa island. Caldera collapse during the catastrophic 1883 eruption destroyed Danan and Perbuwatan volcanoes, and left only a remnant of Rakata volcano. This eruption, the 2nd largest in Indonesia during historical time (the most violent being the eruption of Tambora in 1815), caused more than 36,000 fatalities, most as a result of devastating tsunamis that swept the adjacent coastlines of Sumatra and Java. Pyroclastic surges traveled 40 km across the Sunda Strait and reached the Sumatra coast. After a quiescence of less than a half century, the post-collapse cone of Anak Krakatoa (”Child of Krakatoa”) was constructed within the 1883 caldera at a point between the former cones of Danan and Perbuwatan. Anak Krakatau has been the site of frequent eruptions since 1927.

WAY KAMBAS NATIONAL PARK

Way Kambas National Park is a large national park covering 1,300 square kilometres in Lampung province, South Sumatra, Indonesia. Way Kambas consists of swamp forest and lowland rain forest, but was extensively logged before becoming a reserve in 1972 so there is little primary forest. The reserve still has a few Sumatran Tigers and reasonable numbers of elephants. It is also provides excellent birdwatching, with the rare White-winged Duck among the species present. Accommodation is available at the village of Way Kanan, where there is a small guest house. Another special feature of this national park is the Sumatran Rhino still present in the area. Only 275 remain in South East Asia today. In Way Kambas a managed breeding center or Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) has been build up in 1995. At this moment 5 Sumatran Rhinos live at the Sanctuary, most have been translocated from zoos to the large enclosures (with natural habitat) at the SRS.

 Sumber : http://www.yesstourbali.com

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History

The History Of Sumatera

The remains of the first people in Sumatra date back to 13,000 years ago. The remains appear to have come from hunter-gatherers who lived along the north coast of Sumatra on the Melaka Straight across from now a day Malaysia. There has not been any significant discovery of human remains in the rest of Sumatra up until 2000 years ago when people settled in the Western Sumatra highlands.
The first Kingdom to control all of Sumatra was in the 7th Century when the Kingdom of Sriwijaya took power. The Kingdom was based close to current day Palembang. The Kingdom took control of the Straits of Melaka, which at the time, was a major trade route between India and China.
During the 11th Century, Sriwijaya controlled a large part of South East Asia including the Malay Peninsula, Southern Thailand and Cambodia.

In 1025 the Sriwijayan were conquered by King Ravendra Choladewa from Southern India. The power of Sriwijaya soon becom in control of the Kingdown of Malayu.
In 1278 Sumatra was taken control by the Javanese.
The Sumatran power houses relocated their positions to the northern most point of Sumatra - current day Aceh. At this time a lot of Sumatrans were animist. They began trading with the Muslim traders of West India (Gujarat) and soon adopted their religion. These traders were the first to give Sumatra it's name.
Soon Islamic Sultanates were setup around the northern region and given control of the sea ports servicing the Straits of Melaka.

The Dutch began to colonize Indonesia in the early 17th century and soon become one the richest agricultural regions in the world for 320 years. There was resistance against the Dutch and this did not exclude the Sumatrans. It wasn't uncommon for a Sumatran village to burn it's own village the ground and move somewhere else to prevent the Dutch from taken their village. During the second world war the Japanese occupied Indonesia including Sumatra from 1942 to 1945. There are caves close to Bukkittinggi that were built by the occupying Japanese army as well as some remains of Japanese bunkers on Pulah Weh off the coast of Banda Aceh in the north.

Indonesia gained independence after Japan's surrender to the United States., but it required four years of intermittent negotiations, recurring hostilities, and UN mediation before the Netherlands agreed to relinquish its colony. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state. Current issues include: alleviating widespread poverty, preventing terrorism, continuing the transition to popularly-elected governments after four decades of authoritarianism, implementing reforms of the banking sector, addressing charges of cronyism and corruption, and holding the military and police accountable for human rights violations. Indonesia has been dealing with armed separatist movements in Aceh and in Papua.

The capital of Sumatra, Medan which means battlefield or arena was just a small village in the 16th century. It slowly increased in population and by the beginning of the twentieth century was an important trade centre. The population was estimated to be 75,000 people during the second world war and increased rapidly after this. Todays population is estimated at over 11 million. The first tobacco plantation was established by Jacob Nienhuis in 1863. Large numbers of people from Java and China were brought in to work on this plantation as well as others that sprung up after it was discovered that tobacco grew so well here. Over 300,000 Chinese were brought to Medan between 1870 and 1930. Sumatra still has a mixture of religions. With 90% Muslim and combination of Christians, protestant and Catholic as well as Hindu and Buddhist.
 

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