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You make it seem that something funny is going on with Everest's prominence. That's just the definition of prominence: > prominence measures the height of a mo
by hervature 4y ago
You make it seem that something funny is going on with Everest's prominence. That's just the definition of prominence:
> prominence measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it
By definition, this means that the highest mountain's height is its prominence.
- petercooper 4y agoI don't think there's anything "funny" logically ;-) It's hard to explain, but I just don't find it very gratifying as a measure given Everest is surrounded by almost equally tall mountains with small prominences (Lhotse's is about 600m) and the way Wikipedia refers to a "special definition for Everest" just illogically raises my hackles much in the same way as 1 not being considered prime does and at least that's useful ;-)
- colingoodman 4y agoProminence is a weird property. Consider Grays and Torreys in Colorado, two 14,000ft mountains that are very close to each other. Both are some of the tallest mountains in the country and almost the same height, but because Grays is about 3ft taller than Torreys it ends up having 5 times the prominence (2750 vs 560).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]