Sheer Humanity

Leaning tower of Pisa.

In Italy, in the city of Pisa, there is the leaning tower. Famous for its tilt that it attracts thousands of tourists every year. But why is it leaning? Was it intended?

The leaning tower of Pisa is an ancient building, built in 1173. While the construction of the tower was going on, the building began to sink on one side because of weak soil. Then the engineers abandoned the building for 99 years, continuing in 1272. This allowed the building to settle and stabilise I'm the soil, but it was still tilted.

By the end of construction, the angle of tilt was 1.7°. the Italian government was concerned about the building and didn't want it to fall. So, they tried many things. They dug around the tower to examine its foundation, they injected mortar to strengthen its base and they also tried to counter balance using weight.

All these failed and caused the building to lean even further, reaching an angle of 5.5°. prior to that, engineers had already predicted that the building will fall if it reaches 5.44°. it reached 5.5° and no one could tell why it was still standing.

But with advancement in engineering and aid of computers, engineers we're able to solve the problem in the 1970s. They could safely straighten it, but they didn't want to take away the tower's fame, so they allowed it to lean at only 3.99° and that's what we all see today

What will happen if you suddenly appear at the top of mount Everest?

Climbing mountains isn't just about the endurance to climb or overcoming fear of heights. It's a lot more complex. In fact, if you decide to climb a mountain, you'll need to take a specialised training. This is necessary because strange things happen at high altitudes.

Firstly, any height above 8,000ft is already considered high altitude. At this height, there's lesser available oxygen so your body begins to struggle. Firstly, you begin to breathe faster, your heart starts racing, even your blood becomes thicker. You'll urinate more often, lose weight, and find it difficult to sleep.

All these are happening just at 8,000ft while the peak of mount Everest stands at 29,000ft. What happens there?

Just as we have learnt that available oxygen reduces as we go higher, at 29,000ft, there's less than 1/3 oxygen as there is at sea level. This region is called death zone and it is believed that humans cannot cope with it.

At that height, sleeping becomes unbelievably hard and digestion almost impossible. People begin to get sicknesses like high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) which can quickly lead to death.

There are cases of people doing strange things like removing their clothes, forgetting their camps, and seriously talking with nobody. This is because the brain is deprived of adequate oxygen. You should also know that it is extremely cold at that height (-11°C).

A trick that mountain climbers use is to camp at new heights so that their body adapts to the changes before they continue. This adaptation to height is called acclimatization. Death zone is seen to be too high for any human to acclimatize even after adapting to extreme heights below it.

Now, imaging just appearing at the peak of mount Everest. No telling what will happen to you, but you surely won't survive.