# The man who "discovered" Mount Everest



## Brian G Turner

It's good to see the unsung heroes rise to the fore:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3193576.stm

*The man who 'discovered' Everest*

One day in 1852 in British-ruled India, a young man burst into an office in the northern Dehra Dun hill town and announced to his boss: "Sir, I have discovered the highest mountain in the world!" 

After four long and arduous years of unscrambling mathematical data, Radhanath Sickdhar had managed to find out the height of Peak XV, an icy peak in the Himalayas. 

The mountain - later christened Mount Everest after Sir George Everest, the surveyor general of India - stood at 29,002 feet (8,840 metres). 

Sickdhar's feat, unknown to many Indians, is now part of the Great Arc Exhibition in London's vibrant Brick Lane. 

The Indian Government-sponsored exhibition celebrates 200 years of the mapping of the Indian subcontinent. 

The exercise, which was called "one of the most stupendous works in the whole history of science" was begun by William Lambton, a British army officer, in Madras in 1802. The survey involved several thousand Indians and was named the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS) in 1819.

It covered more than 1,600 miles and countless people died during the work. Tigers and malaria were the main causes of death. 

Sickdhar, who was 39 when he made his discovery, was one of the survey's largely unsung heroes. 

The man from Calcutta was called a "computer" since he worked on computation of data collected by survey parties. 

He was promoted to the position of "chief computer" because of his good work. 

*'Rare genius'* 

"Mathematical skills were essential for Sickdhar's work and he was acknowledged by George Everest as a mathematician of rare genius," British historian John Keay, author of two books on the subject, told BBC News Online. 

"His greatest contribution to the computation was in working out and applying the allowance to be made for a phenomenon called refraction - the bending of straight lines by the density of the Earth's atmosphere," said Mr Keay. 

"Like George Everest himself, [Sickdhar] may have never seen [Mount Everest]." It was first identified as a possible contender for the world's highest peak in 1847 when surveyors glimpsed it from near Darjeeling. 

Several observations were recorded over the next three years by different survey parties. 

But the announcement that it was the highest - thanks to Sickdhar's efforts - was delayed until 1856 as calculations had to be checked repeatedly. 

Sickdhar, the son of a Bengali Brahmin, was born in October 1813 in Jorasanko, Calcutta's old city. 

He studied mathematics at the city's renowned Hindoo College and had a basic knowledge of English. 

A workaholic, Sickdhar never married, instead dedicating his life to knotty mathematical calculations. 

George Everest was always full of praise for the number-crunching genius. 

He wrote that Sickdhar was a "hardy, energetic young man, ready to undergo any fatigue, and acquire a practical knowledge of all parts of his profession. 

"There are a few of my instruments that he cannot manage; and none of my computations of which he is not thoroughly master. He can not only apply formulate but investigate them." 

Mount Everest has risen higher since Sickdhar's findings. 

In 1955, the mountain "grew" by 26 ft to 29,028 ft (or by 8 m to 8,848 m). 

Mount Everest grew another 7 ft (2 m) in 1999 after researchers analysed fresh data from the mountain. Today, the world's highest mountain stands 29,035 ft (8,850 m) high.


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## littlemissattitude

Maybe they should have called it Mount Sickdhar?



> Mount Everest has risen higher since Sickdhar's findings.
> 
> In 1955, the mountain "grew" by 26 ft to 29,028 ft (or by 8 m to 8,848 m).
> 
> Mount Everest grew another 7 ft (2 m) in 1999 after researchers analysed fresh data from the mountain. Today, the world's highest mountain stands 29,035 ft (8,850 m) high.


Actually, the Himalayas are still growing.  India is still colliding with Asia, pushing the mountains up a millimeter at a time.  Or anyway, that's what my old geology teacher told us.


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## Brian G Turner

Heard that, too - but always heard something about the mass of the mountain chain dragging itself down - essentially, the crust is sagging under the weight. I'll watch out for anything covering that.


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## littlemissattitude

_



Continental-continental convergence

The Himalayan mountain range dramatically demonstrates one of the most visible and spectacular consequences of plate tectonics. When two continents meet head-on, neither is subducted because the continental rocks are relatively light and, like two colliding icebergs, resist downward motion. Instead, the crust tends to buckle and be pushed upward or sideways. The collision of India into Asia 50 million years ago caused the Eurasian Plate to crumple up and override the Indian Plate. After the collision, the slow continuous convergence of the two plates over millions of years pushed up the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to their present heights. Most of this growth occurred during the past 10 million years. The Himalayas, towering as high as 8,854 m above sea level, form the highest continental mountains in the world. Moreover, the neighboring Tibetan Plateau, at an average elevation of about 4,600 m, is higher than all the peaks in the Alps except for Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and is well above the summits of most mountains in the United States. 


Click to expand...

 

I found this at http://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/text/understanding/html.

It is part of a text, This Dynamic Earth, published online by the United States Geological Survey. If you go to the link, there are some good illustrations showing just what is happening where India is colliding with the Eurasian plate. Interesting stuff.
_


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## TheEndIsNigh

I seem to recall hearing that Mt E. isn't the highest and never was. I think it said that K2 came in higher but that no one was prepared to suffer a small detail like the facts so they stuck a few more inches on Mt. E. so it kept the title.

It may be something to do with the continuing rise and fall or that the two of them swap over any one time depending on ice cap coverage and the like.

Course I could have it all wrong.


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## Urien

What I want to know is: who was driving India when they crashed it into the world's largest continent?

Think about the insurance claim.


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## Vladd67

TheEndIsNigh said:


> I seem to recall hearing that Mt E. isn't the highest and never was. I think it said that K2 came in higher but that no one was prepared to suffer a small detail like the facts so they stuck a few more inches on Mt. E. so it kept the title.
> 
> It may be something to do with the continuing rise and fall or that the two of them swap over any one time depending on ice cap coverage and the like.
> 
> Course I could have it all wrong.



K2 is 8,611 metres tall and Mt Everest was first measured at 8,840 metres tall so it's a bit more than a few inches. You may be thinking of the story that when it was first measured it was said to be 29000 ft and an extra 29 ft was added on so that people wouldn't think they were just rounding off the figures.
As an aside it was suggested on the series QI that we have been mispronouncing the name Everest, we say Ever-est but Sir George is said to have pronounced his name Eve-rest, a small detail but yet another quirk of the English language.


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## Connavar

Poor Sickdhar his work,genius was stolen by Everest because the Brits ruled India.....

You would think Mount Everest was discovered by i dont know the guy who was called Everest....

Outside India no one will remember Sickdhar discovery because of a name.


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## Sephiroth

That's the nature of history, though.  To the victor, the spoils.  Were it not for British rule, the Great Trigonometrical Survey would not have been taking place.  


Besides which, 'Mount Everest' was not just 'Peak XV'.  It had been Sagarmāthā (in Nepali) and Chomolungma/Qomolangma (in Tibetan) _long _before the British arrived on the scene.  If any name has a claim to be the 'proper' one, I would contend that it be one of those.


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## TheEndIsNigh

Vladd67 said:


> K2 is 8,611 metres tall and Mt Everest was first measured at 8,840 metres tall so it's a bit more than a few inches. You may be thinking of the story that when it was first measured it was said to be 29000 ft and an extra 29 ft was added on so that people wouldn't think they were just rounding off the figures.
> As an aside it was suggested on the series QI that we have been mispronouncing the name Everest, we say Ever-est but Sir George is said to have pronounced his name Eve-rest, a small detail but yet another quirk of the English language.


 
Cheers for that Vladd: I think you're right about the extra 29 feet thing.

Memory isn't what it used to be. 

Eh!!!!  what's that you say...


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## mosaix

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Cheers for that Vladd: I think you're right about the extra 29 feet thing.
> 
> Memory isn't what it used to be.
> 
> Eh!!!!  what's that you say...



I think it was 2 feet that was added to avoid it being exactly 29,000. Later, more accurate surveys came up with 29,028 feet and then, finally, 29,035.


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## Pyan

Connavar said:


> Poor Sickdhar his work,genius was stolen by Everest because the Brits ruled India.....
> 
> You would think Mount Everest was discovered by i dont know the guy who was called Everest....
> 
> Outside India no one will remember Sickdhar discovery because of a name.



1: Sir George Everest didn't suggest the name - it was proposed by his successor, Colonel Waugh. It's reliably reported that he didn't want it, and was embarrassed by the idea.

2:





> The debates around the naming of Mount Everest seem interesting. They bring to light the integrity of some British officers, for their resistance to name the peak XV, after George Everest, as t*he tradition of Survey of India demanded no tinkering with local names.* However several local names like Deodhunga, Bhairava Langur, Bhairavathan, Gnalham Thanga and Gaurishankar were ignored through protracted debates, claims and counter claims of authenticity and novelty. Opinions were manipulated, maneuvered, and mobilized to eventually name the peak after Everest.


(My emphasis)

_Making History Drawing Territory, British Mapping in India, c.1765-1905_ - *Ian J Barrow*.

If there is one innocent in the naming of Chomolungma, it would seem to be Sir George...



As for the "threat from K2":



> ...we know Everest to be 29,035 feet after an American expedition measured it with Global positioning system satellites in 1998.
> 
> K2's official height of 28,274 feet was also established in the mid-nineteenth century.
> 
> Rumours that it might actually be much, much higher - 13 feet taller than Everest - began in 1987 after a British expedition measured K2 and found it to be 29,041 feet.
> 
> Later, the team admitted that its equipment had been low on batteries and giving unreliable results.



_BBC News Archive_

There you are - they should have enlisted the Duracell bunnies...


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## Ursa major

pyan said:


> There you are - they should have enlisted the Duracell bunnies...


...and give K2 a copper-coloured top? 


As to the naming of foreign places with wrong (or inaccurate) names, I would imagine most countries do it. Where, for instance, is Londres? (And it seems "Everest has a multitude of local names. Which one should we in the UK use?)



(By the way, I like the idea of a mountain being declared too high due to a low charge.)


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## Connavar

Pyan :

It was clear to me before that it wasnt Sir Everest who wanted to name the mountain with his own name.   His words about Sickdhar made it clear it wasnt him who manipulated to give his name to the mounting as you linked in your post.


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