In the news recently has been “The UK’s new highest mountain” (see the link) which is a bit of a non-story. But this has led to a puzzle below on mountains.
The story is that Mount Hope in the United Kingdom’s part of Antarctica is the new highest mountain in the United Kingdom (measuring 3,239 metres), with the implication that Ben Nevis (a mere 1,345 metres) has been toppled from this position. From this you would infer that all quizzes referring to the United Kingdom’s highest mountain as Ben Nevis are now wrong.
Well, not quite.
You see, there is another mountain in Antarctica, Mount Jackson, which has been known about for quite a while. As this measures 3,184 metres it was already higher than Ben Nevis. What has happened is that Mount Hope has been re-measured and it has overtaken Mount Jackson. But even with its old height, Mounts Hope and Jackson were both considered higher that Ben Nevis.
Furthermore, there is a Mount Paget on South Georgia that is 2,935 metres high.
Now both British Antarctic Territory and South Georgia are British Overseas Territories (see the link) and these are defined as “places under the sovereignty of the UK which are not part of the UK”. So neither British Antarctic Territory nor South Georgia are in the United Kingdom, and none of Mounts Hope, Jackson or Paget are either.
Now a couple of mountain questions:
Which is the world’s tallest mountain?
Which point on the earth’s surface is farthest from the centre of the earth?
As usual you can post your answers as a comment on this website, reply to the post on Facebook , or retweet or reply on Twitter @quizmastershop.
We’ll give the answers and explanation on Monday morning at 9.00 as usual.