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Above image: Radhanath Sikdar an Indian mathematician did a major work related to calculation of the height of Mount Everest using trigonometry in 1852 as 8840 metres. Unfortunately,he still remains unsung hero.The Indian history text book should include a chapter on him and popularize his name........
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Today, children effortlessly answer quiz questions about the height of Mount Everest, yet few are aware of the extraordinary human effort, sacrifice, and mathematical brilliance behind its discovery. Long before modern technology, the task of identifying the world’s highest peak was accomplished during the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India (GTS) in the nineteenth century. At the heart of this achievement stood Radhanath Sikdar (1813–1870), an eminent Indian mathematician whose contribution remains largely unrecognized.
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During the colonial period under the East India Company, the British initiated the Great Trigonometrical Survey to map the Indian subcontinent. While officers such as William Lambton, George Everest, and Andrew Waugh led the survey, the most crucial mathematical breakthrough came from Sikdar. In 1852, while working as the Chief Computer of the GTS, Sikdar calculated that a Himalayan peak known as Peak XV was the highest mountain in the world.
The task was extraordinarily complex. Surveyors could not physically reach the forbidden Nepal–Tibet border region, so measurements were taken from six distant locations over 100 miles away using theodolites. These observations were affected by atmospheric refraction, Earth’s curvature, and variations in rock density. Correcting these errors required advanced mathematical modeling. Sikdar, a master of Newtonian mathematics and physics, painstakingly analyzed years of data to arrive at the accurate height of the peak.
Ironically, like George Everest himself, Sikdar never saw the mountain. Yet his calculations were so precise that, after repeated verification, Surveyor-General Andrew Waugh officially announced the finding in 1856. Despite Radhanath Sikdar' s significant role, the peak was named Mount Everest, after George Everest, while Sikdar remained in the background.
Sikdar' s obscurity reflects the colonial mindset of the time, which often sidelined Indian intellectual contributions. Although George Everest acknowledged him as a “mathematician of rare genius,” official records and survey manuals failed to adequately credit him. Beyond mathematics, Sikdar was also a progressive thinker who supported women’s education, widow remarriage, and opposed social evils like child marriage.
Radhanath Sikdar died in relative isolation in 1870, but his legacy endures. As the true discoverer of Mount Everest’s height, he represents one of India’s unsung scientific heroes, whose brilliance helped solve one of the greatest geographical puzzles of the nineteenth century.
https://scroll.in/article/969937/the-story-of-how-mount-everest-was-measured-and-got-its-name
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