Thursday, January 6, 2022

Jan 6 2021 - Finding More Corners

 

Are mountains distinguished by how many sides they have?  How are they shaped?  Are there mountains with four sides so have four corners?  Yes, there are.  

The one that seems to be famous is Makalu.  It is an isolated peak whose shape is a four-sided pyramid.  It is south-east of Mount Everest. The isolated peak straddles the border of Nepal and Tibet, a region currently governed by China. The summit itself lies directly on the international boundary. 

"At 6675m, four-sided Mount Kailash rises isolated above one of the barren places on this planet, the Tibetan Plateau. Seeing this majestic, pyramid-shaped mountain one can imagine that it is perceived as one of the most sacred mountains in the world. To Hindus the mountain is named Kailāśa and it serves as the home of the mountain god Shiva and his wife Parvati. In addition the mountain is seem as the ‘World pillar’ rising to the center of heaven. The Hindus claim that its four sides are made-up of lapis lazuli, crystal, ruby and gold. Buddhists call the mountain Kang Rimpoche, the precious one of glacial snow; for them it is the navel of the world. The Bön see it as the dwelling of sky goddess Sipaimen and call it Tise, and for the Jains, who call it Astapada, it is the mountain where their leader Rishaba was enlightened."

There are not a lot of four sided mountains, but there is another distinction - mountains with peaks that are four-sided, or pyramidal.  There turns out to be a lot of these and they are located in the Alps.  The Matterhorn is a classic example of a pyramidal peak. 

Mountain shapes turn out to be distinctive when their elevations are mapped. There are four different shapes - diamond, pyramid, hourglass and inverse pyramid  I would never have guessed.  Here's the chart that shows the shapes and where they are located.  

The article is here at the dailymail.uk.  

 

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