Those who want to see as much as possible of the Eiffel Tower should take the opportunity during the ongoing heatwave.
The tower is stretching itself in the summer heat and can be as much as 15 centimeters higher now than when it shrinks during the cold winter months, reports the academic news site The Conversation.
Behind the expansion phenomenon lies basic physics – when solid substances are heated, they expand because the heat makes their atoms move faster, which makes them press further away from each other. In the same way, the tower also shrinks during the winter.
This means that the tower, which was initially supposed to be named La Tour de 300 Mètres – the 300-meter tower – would not have had a name that was entirely true, and it is therefore more fitting that the famous Parisian landmark was finally named after the constructor Gustave Eiffel.
The tower and all of Paris will be sweating properly in the coming week, according to Meteo France, temperatures above 30 degrees are expected during the day.
Fact: The Eiffel Tower
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Constructed by Gustave Eiffel for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889.
The roof of the tower is 300 meters above the ground. Including the antenna, the tower measures 330 meters.
About six million people visit the tower every year.
Source: The Eiffel Tower.
