Tower
A tower is a high structure, usually man-made. The sea can erode the land and make a tower known as a sea-stack. The air traffic control tower at Bristol Airport, Bristol, England Purposes:
- being impressive or beautiful
- saving surface area
- for the view
- * for tourism
- * for guiding: air traffic control tower, in particular at an airport, harbour control towers at harbours
- * for security against coming in or getting out: a watch tower at a prison, concentration camp, fortress/castle, border/defensive wall; in some of these cases also to fire from;
- * for watching out for fire, especially in a forest: fire tower;
- for spreading light: light tower, lighthouse
- for spreading sound: church tower with church bells, minaret of a mosque, bell tower
- for showing the time (clock tower)
- as storage for grain (silo)
- for increasing communications distances antenna tower, radio mast
- for use of the gravity: water tower, drop tower
- foor meteorological measurements in different heights (measurement tower)
- as part of a suspension bridge or cable-stayed bridge
- for supporting power and signal cables (pylon)
- for access to rockets in order to prepare them for launch (launch tower)
- for the guidance of unguided rockets at launch (service tower, supply tower)
- for physical experiments (drop tower, BREN Tower)
- for solar thermal power stations
- as chimneys
- for fixing nuclear boms at tests (bomb tower)
- for drilling in the ground (drilling tower)
- in a swimming pool for jumping from a height
- for fun of climbing in it, for example on a children's playground
- the tower of a high slide, for supporting it and with stairs for reaching the starting point
- for gaining wind power
- as support structure for aerial tramways
- to gain access for maintenance or cleaning, e.g. scaffold tower
- for mounting thyristors in a HVDC (thyristor tower)
- for attacking a walled city: siege tower
- to reach heaven (legendary Tower of Babel)
- for the production of bullets for rapid hunting (German:Schrotkugel)
- for ski jumping and ski flying
- note: in some parts of the English-speaking world, skyscrapers are not thought of as towers; however in the UK, tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks and in the USA the now-destroyed New York World Trade Center has the nickname the Twin Towers, a moniker it shares with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
- Eiffel Tower
- Radio Tower Berlin
- Gerbrandy Tower
- Petronas Tower
- Tower of London
- Tokyo Tower
- World's tallest structures
- List of towers
- Inclined towers
- http://www.geocities.com/birmingham_highrise/