Natural Curiosities: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough—To Escape Physics

Nobody knows the actual height of Mount Everest.

Since 1954, the highest point on earth has been officially recorded as 29,029 feet above sea level. But in 1992, Italian scientists said ciao to the accepted number and claimed 29,022 feet. American scientists added seventeen feet a few years later. China next pushed for an official recognition of a mere 29,017 feet. Nepal sent its own geologists up the mountain in 2019 to record a new, we-really-mean-it official height. Sympathies to all those parties, as measuring the peak is complex, often political, and inexact—do you include the semi-permanent snowcap? Or just the rock below? Complicating things further, Everest is still adding to its mass each year.

Which raises questions. Can Everest get significantly taller? Can any mountain? Geologists think they have the answers.

While it may not seem that way if you’re climbing them, the planet’s ten highest peaks don’t differ dramatically in elevation, with Everest about twenty-five hundred feet taller than the tenth highest, Annapurna I. From there, the list