[tele_ski]

I've always thought that it seems like a silly way to measure it.. Everest also goes to the sea floor, technically.

[perihelions]

Everything is silly, and consensus reality on these kind of things is just a glorified Reddit thread IRL. There's at least four plausible metrics. Everest is tallest from the local mean sea level (the smoothed gravitational equipotential—what a stationary water surface hugs); McKinley-Denali from its local terrain base; Mauna Kea from the local terrain base inclusive of underwater terrain; and Chimborazo, in equatorial Ecuador (it's Ecuador because it's equatorial), as measured from this planet's center-of-mass (the planet bulges out approaching the equator because of its spinning—"oblateness").

Like a Reddit thread, it's best not to argue too much with what the hive-mind decides. People literally died climbing what they believed to be the correct answer. Let them have their thing. :)

[dredmorbius]

Following up on your pedantism: Chimborazo isn't in Ecuador because it's equatorial, but rather, it's equatorial because it's in Ecuador.

(Or, perhaps, because it lies near or on the equator.)

There are non-Ecuadorian equatorial locations.

:-)

(I do like, appreciate, and was previously aware of the various claims to "highest mountain". Interesting also to contemplate that the early Rockies, and perhaps Appalachian mountains (themselves older than dirt, literally), may once have exceeded thirty thousand feet (approaching 10,000 m). Though the Rockies figure might be an ambitious reading of the Teton Fault having experienced 20,000 -- 30,000 feet of vertical displacement. This is possible without peaks reaching such heights, given erosion. Estimates of the original height of the Appalachians is even more tenuous and indirect.)

[tracerbulletx]

Enjoyed your clear description but I don't know that framing it as some kind of hive mind group think issue is that accurate. It's just taxonomy and ontology, it's ok to have different taxonomies for different contexts. The same issue exists for everything. planets, temperature, oceans, species..

[RHSman2]

Humans measuring stuff and getting pedantic is a sport for the ages.

[whycome]

So I’m not supposed to measure it from my belly button? ..,

But really, is there a “highest point on earth”? That takes into account all the variations of land. Would it work if earth isn’t a perfect sphere?

[eesmith]

Shout out to Chimborazo, where the summit is (likely) furthest from the center of the Earth. (I understand Huascarán is in contention, and don't know the latest details.)

[jebarker]

Then you’d be calling a whole continent a single mountain and it wouldn’t be a continuous slope in one direction.

I agree though that it’s a bit silly to measure Mauna Kea to the ocean floor.

[gottorf]

It feels like it makes a bit more sense with Mauna Kea, since Big Island is just five shield volcanoes in a trenchcoat, and the point where the land meets the ocean is basically just the foothills of the mountains. You cannot say that of Everest, which is over 400 miles from the nearest ocean.