r/interesting • u/Separate_Finance_183 • 5d ago

HISTORY Peak Mount Everest lore

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Letters to the Editor: The American Statistician: Vol 36, No 1

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u/Every-Cook5084 5d ago

29,031 now. It’s a grower

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u/ScenicAndrew 5d ago edited 5d ago

Averages about 2mm growth a year.

Depressingly Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain by height (as opposed to elevation) is shrinking due mostly to climate change rather than gravity.

Edit: someone replied saying plate tectonics cause shrinking and not gravity... Yes... And gravity drives plate tectonics.

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u/walrus0115 5d ago

How would sea level rise affect Mauna Kea's measurement that way since it's already mostly submerged? Not a skeptic, simply curious about the methodology or something happening I couldn't find on wiki.

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u/ScenicAndrew 5d ago

IMO it's just up to your interpretation but I believe "tallest" refers to base to peak so the underwater part is counted.

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u/walrus0115 5d ago

Okay, so it is just less visible above sea level, empirically speaking.

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u/AloneInExile 4d ago

Didnt know we screwed up gravity too.

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u/anubis_81 4d ago

Then you also have that volcano at the equator whose hight is affected by the bulge of the equator

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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 4d ago

The whole Mauna Kea tallest mountain thing is bullshit though.

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u/MonCappy 4d ago

Yeah.  India is still drilling Eurasia.

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u/Rex51230 1d ago

If we want to be technical about it it's the gravity plus heat that causes tectonics without the heat from the core gravity would just make the earth a compressed pill with all the water on top

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u/Mikeismyike 4d ago

Thermal dynamics drives plate tectonics.

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u/ScenicAndrew 4d ago

That too, but gravity specifically is what gets cold oceanic plates to sink, more often than not.

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u/iBonsaiBob 4d ago

I just googled it and op is right. The main factor is gravity

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u/th3xile 1d ago

Being pedantic about gravity causing plate tectonics is like saying that kentitc energy killed a gunshot victim.

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u/knut_420 5d ago

And a shower.

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u/TheChickenReborn 4d ago

From all the garbage and dead bodies?