implausible

Says the adage that “Caesar’s wife, in addition to being honest, must appear so.” Something similar happens with topography. When in the mid-19th century a group of researchers from the British Royal Geographical Society dedicated themselves to measuring Mount Everest concluded that its highest point was at 29,000 feet (8,839 m). The problem is that this figure was so round (so damn perfect) that it conveyed the false image that it was the result of lax rounding, not of years of calculations. To avoid this, the team decided to be pragmatic: they added two extra feet to the top, an invented addition that left their official size at 29,002 feet, a more ‘serious’ figure. A complicated mission. In the era of satellites and GPS it may seem like a relatively (relatively) simple task, but in its day measuring the height of mountains was a real challenge. headache. Especially if we talk about peaks like those found in the Himalayas. In the 19th century, experts such as Alexander von Humboldt They used the variation in atmospheric pressure to measure, for example, the height of Chimborazo, in Ecuador. Later, in the 19th century, surveyors opted for triangulation. With these resources, in the 1850s, a team hired by George Everestformer surveyor general of India, settled near the border between India and Nepal to collect information from Peak XV, today renamed after the British surveyor. The Indian mathematician Radhnath Sikdar and the rest of his colleagues responsible for calculations on the ground they didn’t have it easybut in 1852 They obtained conclusive results that confirmed that the Himalayas were home to “the highest mountain” on the planet. and What did they discover? Its objective was to improve the unofficial estimates made years earlier by James Nicholson, who placed the peak at about 30,200 feet (just over 9,200 meters). And they did it. After extensive triangulation and mountain data collection, the team hired by Everest concluded that Peak XV measured 29,002 feet (8,839 m). Or at least that’s what was officially announced. There is a version of the story, collected by The American Statistician, IFL Science or Montana State University, which claims that the exact data obtained by the team to which Radhnath Sikdar belonged was 29,000. Not one more foot. Not one less. Science… and appearance. The problem is that this figure may have been accurate, but it certainly sounded unscientific. Those responsible for the mission they were afraid that, upon seeing it, their British colleagues thought that they had made a rough and unrigorous estimate, so they decided to give it a more ‘respectable’ appearance. As? Adding two gift feet. A testimonial growth spurt, but one that conveyed the image that the work had been more rigorous. The explanation is found in a letter published in 1982 in The American Statisticianwhich in turn quotes a paragraph published several years earlier in People’s Almanac. “The first official survey of Everest was carried out in 1852. Surveyors took measurements at six points and came up with an average figure of 29,000 feet. This seemed too round an estimate for an official report, so they added two feet to their published result to make the height 9,002 feet,” collect the article. Some versions They maintain that the idea was not Sikdar’s, but Andrew S. Waughtthe successor to Everest. With respective. What the Everest team may not have suspected is that (‘pretty’ or not) their measurement was not going to be the last word on the subject. They improved the previous estimate of Nicholson and they were surprisingly close to the ‘real’ data, but the truth is that in the middle of the 20th century another study made closer to the mountain set its elevation at 29,029 feet. Since then even that figure has been revised. In 1999 an expedition sponsored by National Geographic concluded that the bedrock is at 20,035 feet. Years later, Chinese experts placed it at 29,017. Since then the data has been corrected again. In 2021, the Nepal Survey Department and the Chinese authorities announced that the altitude is 29,031.69 feet above sea level. Is it that difficult? Of course it is more complicated than it may seem. And not because the tools or calculations we use are more or less precise. Before talking about the height of Everest, several factors must be taken into account. The first is what we take as a reference: the rock or the snow that accumulates on it? The snow layer on the summit is not immutable and its thickness is influenced, for example, by the weather or wind speed. Even the bedrock can experience slight variations. “The mountain is part of a dynamic tectonic environment,” remember from Montana State University. Experts say that in 2015 an earthquake displaced several centimeters Everest. Other studies argue that changes in the Arun River basin are raising the mountain 2mm every year. Now we could even discuss whether Everest is the highest mountain on the planet or that depends on what criteria we follow and whether we look at the height from the base to the top or the distance of the latter with respect to the earth’s center, although that is another debate. Images | Michael Clarke (Unsplash) and Evan Qu (Unsplash) In Xataka | There is something worse than Everest turning into a mountain literally full of shit: scam rescues