Normal heights (symbol or ; SI unit metre, m) is a type of height above sea level introduced by the Soviet scientist Mikhail Molodenskii.The normal height of a point is defined as the quotient of a point's geopotential number C (i.e. its geopotential difference with that of sea level), by the vertically averaged normal gravity:
The average is evaluated along the normal potential's plumb line (a curve, approximated by the ellipsoidal normal, a straight line). The evaluation ranges from the Earth ellipsoid up to the point of interest; the procedure is thus recursive.Normal heights are slightly dependent upon the reference ellipsoid chosen.