Height
Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is about 10,000 m". For example, "Shaq O’Neal is 7 foot 1 inches in vertical height."
This article is about the measure of vertical distance. For other uses, see Height (disambiguation).
When the term is used to describe vertical position (of, e.g., an airplane) from sea level, height is more often called altitude.[1]
Furthermore, if the point is attached to the Earth (e.g., a mountain peak), then altitude (height above sea level) is called elevation.[2]
In a two-dimensional Cartesian space, height is measured along the vertical axis (y) between a specific point and another that does not have the same y-value. If both points happen to have the same y-value, then their relative height is zero. In the case of three-dimensional space, height is measured along the vertical z axis, describing a distance from (or "above") the x-y plane.
Etymology[edit]
The English-language word high is derived from Old English hēah, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *xauxa-z, from a PIE base *keuk-. The derived noun height, also the obsolete forms heighth and highth, is from Old English híehþo, later héahþu, as it were from Proto-Germanic *xaux-iþa.
In human culture[edit]
Human height is one of the areas of study within anthropometry. While environmental factors have some effect on variations in human height, these influences are insufficient to account for all differences between populations, suggesting that genetic factors are important for explaining variations between human populations.[3]
The United Nations uses height (among other statistics) to monitor changes in the nutrition of developing nations. In human populations, average height can distill down complex data about the group's birth, upbringing, social class, diet, and health care system.
In their research, Baten, Stegl and van der Eng came to the conclusion that a change in the average height is a sign for a change in the economic development. With broad data of Indonesia, the researchers state that several incidents in the history of the country has led not only to a change in the economy but also to a change in the population's average height.[4]
