Radhanath Sikdar
Radhanath Sikdar (also Sickdhar; Bengali: রাধানাথ শিকদার Radhanath Sikdar, * 1813 in Calcutta, British India, † May 17 1870 in Chandannagar ) was an Indian mathematician in the service of the Great Trigonometric Survey, the calculated first the height of Mount Everest.
Life and work
Radhanath Sikdar graduated from the " Hindoo College ", a predecessor of today's Presidency University.
When George Everest, the head of the Great Trigonometric Survey and Surveyor General of India, in 1831 at the College to a mathematician inquired with good knowledge in Spherical Trigonometry, Radhanath Sikdar was recommended to him. Everest then introduced him as a computor to calculate in measuring the meridian arc from the observations of geodesics the heights and distances of measurement points - at a time were not yet widely used as slide rule.
Everest was impressed with his work and wrote about him:
" 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 did he can not manage; and none of my computations End of month he is not thoroughly master. He can not only apply Formulae but investigate them. "
" Tough, energetic young man, ready to take any trouble to himself and to acquire practical knowledge of all areas of his profession. There are a few of my instruments with which he can not handle, and none of my calculations, he has not mastered thoroughly. He can not only apply formulas, but also explore its contents. "
As Everest retired in 1843 to retire to England, was Andrew Scott Waugh and his successor continued the triangulation, the longest of which the 1845 to 1850 along the eastern half of the Himalayas was conducted series. Since the Nepalese Government denied access to their territory, the numerous, the British mostly unknown peaks of the Himalayas could be targeted only at distances up to 200 km.
Radhanath Sikdar, who had meanwhile risen to Chief Computor is to calculate from these soundings, the exact position and the height of the 79 peak was responsible. After extensive and complex calculations in which error sources such as the diffraction of light and temperature and air pressure fluctuations were taken into account as far as possible at that time, Sikdar came in 1852 to the conclusion that Peak XV with 29,002 feet ( 8,840 m) the highest of the targeted peak and thus probably the highest mountain in the world is.
Because of the inherent uncertainties, the large distances hesitated Andrew Waugh to publish these news. Only after numerous further measurements and calculations, he informed the Royal Geographical Society in London in a letter dated March 1, 1856, that the Peak XV is the highest peak in the world and probably he had named it in honor of his predecessor Mount Everest. His Indian Chief Computor was not mentioned in the letter.
In addition to his duties as Chief Computor Radhanath Sikdar was appointed in 1852 as head of the meteorological observatory of Calcutta, where he introduced precise, regular observations. For shipping to he installed also a system of accurate time information due to astronomical observations, so that the chronometer could be adjusted on the ships.
Radhanath Sikdar, who had never married, went into retirement in 1862 and died on 17 May 1870 in his house in Chandannagar on the banks of the Hooghly north of Calcutta.
Honors
Radhanath Sikdar was in 1853 a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 2004 he was honored along with Nain Singh, on a postage stamp block of Indian post in memory of the Great Trigonometric Survey.