2017-10-05 Thu

Radhanath Sikdar was a Bengali mathematician who worked for the Surveyor General of India and was employed by the Great Trigonometric Survey of India in the 19th century.

At the age of 19, Sikdar started working for Surveyor General, George Everest on the recommendation of his professor at Hindu College (Calcutta), due to his brilliance in the subject of spherical trigonometry. In 1852, Radhanath Sikdar was stationed at the survey headquarter of Dehradun where he was tasked with calculating heights of various peaks of the Himalayan ranges.

During that time, Kanchenjunga was considered as the highest mountain peak above sea-level. In 1849, an initial reading of Himalayan ranges was taken by James Nicolson who estimated that there might be a higher peak, Peak XV.

Sikdar built upon the readings from his location 800Km away, paying particular attention to Peak XV. He arrived at a definitive calculation of the distant summit's height. The calculation of Sikdar placed the height of Mount Everest about 29000ft but this round figure was looking at an approximate variable. So he added 29002ft to give it a more accurate and effective number.

After few years, Waugh announced the news to the world and named Peak XV in honour of his predecessor, Mount Everest and conveniently forgot Sikdar.

In 2004, India Post issued a Commemorative stamp to honour the greatest contributors to the Survey and acknowledge Radhanath Sikdar’s work.