Chimborazo’s role in proving Newton’s theory of gravity

Climbers can fall off mountains for a variety of reasons. Clumsiness, incompetence, bad luck, shoddy equipment, natural causes or – if you’re Joe Simpson – because somebody above you has cut the rope. But there’s one common cause in every plummet: the law of gravity, discovered in the 1660s (as legend has it) by the British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, after being struck on the head by an apple.

I expect you know this already, but Newton’s law states that bodies attract in proportion to their...