Rock height
I have to say, I am with the Chinese on this one as otherwise you could be recalculating every time it snows!
The Nepalese government has decided to answer once and for the all the question of just how tall Everest is, since it can't agree with the Chinese on an exact height for the lofty peak. The generally accepted height of 8,848m (29,029ft) came from a 1955 Indian survey, the BBC notes. Nepal accepts this "snow height" figure ( …
...is it important to know the exact height of Everest for border talks? Since a border is an imaginary vertical line, surely all you need is the exact position of the summit in the horizontal plane?
Enquiring technical minds want to know....
No 'huge mountain' icon, so Paris, for obvious reasons...
The snow peak summit could be in a different position to the rock summit so there's a land grab issue. Albeit by a metre or two. So, if* the height (and hence the border) is defined on the rock summit and prevailing winds meant the snow summit was e.g. to the north of the rock summit, then all summiteers would be in China rather than Nepal. And China would be slightly larger. All round good for China.
*big if
Try telling that to the israilies/palestinians!
Old story really, didnt i read somewhere that spain and portugal both carried out surveys of their mutual border, last century sometime, and came up with markedly different figures?
apparently it came down to the fact that portugal, being smaller, therefore land being more important to them (?) took more care to measure the route in smaller steps - round big stones etc, while the spaniards went from hiltop to hiltop. thereby exposing the fractal nature of geographic boundaries.
i guess you could say the same here, im not too sure but i think china is a fair bit bigger than nepal
@AC: those pesky Martians are claiming THEY'VE got the tallest mountain in the solar system. It's vital for Earth's reputation that we get the exact figure.
http://geology.com/articles/highest-point-on-mars.shtml
Else they're just using this nit-picking exercise as a means to assert their independence. It's like the committee approving the new 20 million quid computer and then fighting about which cheap brand of coffee to use.
lol :p I think this is just so Nepal can assert for sure what the _actual_ height of Mt. Everest aka Sagarmatha is without being bashed top to bottom, left to right. IMHO, assertion is good in this regard. Every country should assert it's own way of doing things be it small / big (provided it is within the boundaries of normality in every sense) :-)
Olympus Mons is a little bit bigger than Everest.
Everest = 88xx metres above sea level, which is 10,971 metres above the lowest point.
Olympus Mons = 21,229 metres above the average and nearly 30,000 metres above the lowest point. The ring wall on the crater of Olympus Mons is nearly 8,000 metres tall.
As for why, well the Chinese only conquered Tibet so they could lay claim to half of the tallest mountain in the world and now they need to justify the huge investment for what is mostly a high desert and bare rock. If they argue about it in a diplomatic exchange then it must be worth arguing about. (Diplomacy = circular logic)
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It's a matter of "national pride" in a place where such things are frowned upon (if not outright banned) by the occupiers.
Consider this analog: Assume you are a Brit, and the Yanks have been occupying your land, messing with your government (don't start cheering yet; remember, 'Murica is the land of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, John Kyl, and other assorted wingnuts who we continue to put in places of power), and otherwise generally messing with all things British for some indeterminate period of time. How important would it be to you to defend your ability to put the letter 'u' in the word "color"?