According to Wikipedia a tower is just a tall, free standing structure, meant for regular access by humans, but not for living in or office work. Whereas a mast can have guy-wires (like in the article picture).
The constraint of having a constant cross section is not part of the definition of a tower, I really don't understand why they make that assumption in the article. It was really an awkward read, thinking "just build from a larger base" at each paragraph.
If we look at Burj Khalifa or the Eiffel Tower, they certainly have large bases.
edit: actually the debate on the definition of tower vs mast vs tall building, habitable, free-standing, and the discussion pages on various articles (Tower, List of tallest towers, etc.) were a more interesting read than the article :-)
Because this is an argument in semantics. Sometimes it's ok to let it go and just read about a subject in the way the author intends. This is hard for me too sometims!
The constraint of having a constant cross section is not part of the definition of a tower, I really don't understand why they make that assumption in the article. It was really an awkward read, thinking "just build from a larger base" at each paragraph.
If we look at Burj Khalifa or the Eiffel Tower, they certainly have large bases.
edit: actually the debate on the definition of tower vs mast vs tall building, habitable, free-standing, and the discussion pages on various articles (Tower, List of tallest towers, etc.) were a more interesting read than the article :-)