Showing posts with label Top Ten World tallest skyscrapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top Ten World tallest skyscrapers. Show all posts

Friday, April 8, 2011

List: 'Top Ten World tallest skyscrapers'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Sweetheart Vivienne and I share many likes. Including Freudian theory (even though nowadays its popularity’s waning). So when we see a man driving a big car, we pontificate about the size of his – er, how shall I put it – male member. I’ve no idea if size is everything. And I don’t care. But I suspect size matters to lots of people. And, I dare surmise, most of them are men. And so to today’s list: from thetoptenlist.net it’s ‘Top Ten World [sic] tallest skyscrapers’ [1]. Wikipedia says there’s no accepted definition of a skyscraper; to be a skyscraper a building has to be habitable; and. interestingly, the word ‘skyscraper’ was originally a nautical term [2]. It’s instructive to contemplate that from 1873 to 1974, 15 skyscrapers were sequentially the world’s tallest. And all 15 were in the USA [3]. Since then all the successive world’s tallests have been in Asia or the Middle East. The current number one (pictured), in Dubai UAE, is a massive 828 metres (2,717 feet) tall [4]. In other words, over half a mile high. And almost 10% of Mt Everest’s height. Man’s ingenuity building a skyscraper that high is awe-inspiring. Moreso as it’s a massive 319 metres (i.e. 62%) higher than its predecessor. Of the nine other contemporary tallest in the list, five are in China, two are elsewhere in Asia, and two are in the US. I don’t know how many of the ten were conceived and designed by men. My guess? All of them. Ho hum.