Depends on what you mean by highest. The highest mountain in the world is not Everest, it is Chimborazo in Ecuador. Everest is the highest above sea level, true, but Chimborazo, at only 20,700 feet (6,310m) is the furthest from the centre of the earth by some 2150m. That makes it the highest mountain (assuming you want to define height that way). Search at
google.com/search?q=chimborazo+centre+earth
18 Aug 2006: I had previously added a comment to the above, that "the peak of Chimborazo will be the place where you have the most potential energy", in order to try to explain what I meant by "highest". But
Wyatt Johnson wrote to me pointing out that, on consideration of potential energy, Everest would be higher. He wrote, ... if you were to consider gravity as the only source of potential energy, than yes, furthest from the center of the Earth would yield the highest potential energy (assuming Earth's gravity field were longitudinally symmetric). But Earth's rotation is another source of potential energy. At the same radius, you'll have more potential energy nearer the poles than the equator. Objects will tend to roll (or in the case of liquids, flow) to the lowest potential energy possible. Our oceans don't form a sphere - they form an oblate spheroid. The sea level reflects an even potential across the planet. So since Everest is the highest peak relative to mean sea level, it also has the most potential energy relative to any other point on the surface.
On 18 July 2006, Joseph Cooper wrote... You should mention that Mauna Kea is actually the "tallest" mountain in addition to the two you mention. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea) and set pin
