November 2020 - Day 26

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Here is the place to tell us about your daily success (or the lack of it)!
May the magic be with us all!

Comments

[ylla.livejournal.com]

It was! I'd never though about it, but it's much easier to measure a mountain from sea level, because you know how high you are (0!), and so if you can get a distance it's just a case of measuring an angle up. But once you get inland it's hard - so for a time Tenerife was thought to be higher than things like Mont Blanc, and then some of the more coastal Andes were much easier to measure than the Himalayas.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - it is obvious when you think about it :)

And I suppose, practically, how far it was from the bottom of it to the top was more important to those who lived near it than how far it was above the level of a distant shore.

How do they determine what is exactly sea level? Our tide around the island has about a 16ft difference between high and low tide - and Snaefell is measured as 2,036ft high - is it at high tide, low tide or half way?

[ylla.livejournal.com]

If it mattered to them at all - there are ancient things buried at the top of some of the Andes, but in Europe mountains mostly just seem to have been seen as messy - places you can't do anything useful with.

When the survey measured its baseline in 1802 sea level meant high water, but at some time after that it was decided to use a mean, and they had to redo all their sums.

There's a standard sea level now, at least for the UK (and probably people like you!), but I can't remember if it's based on Liverpool or Falmouth. I think it changed from one to the other at some point...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - that is really interesting.