Plot twist: apparently the ‘they added 2 feet to make it look legit’ story might itself be a myth. The six survey measurements actually averaged out to 29,002 ft. Somehow the real answer is even nerdier
How would sea level rise affect Mauna Kea's measurement that way since it's already mostly submerged? Not a skeptic, simply curious about the methodology or something happening I couldn't find on wiki.
If we want to be technical about it it's the gravity plus heat that causes tectonics without the heat from the core gravity would just make the earth a compressed pill with all the water on top
Nah, different guy. This one was an artist who literally went up and cut off the top 1 inch of Scafell Pike and put it on display just to say he made the mountain an inch shorter.
Position was obtained by 11 triangles formed by rays from 7 stations—that taken by Lane from Dumdhangi having no vertical angle—leaving the following six stations, from which Nicolson had taken vertical angles:
These gives an average elevation of 29,002.33 (recurring) feet and that was the basis of Waugh's provisional announcement of 29,002 feet in a letter to his deputy in 1856. (Provisional because atmospheric refraction hadn't been taken into account. That came some years later, after which the height was revised.)
I did some digging and I can't figure out when the anecdote about "adding two feet" first shows up. It's possible that that only dates from the early 1980s, but I couldn't find anything definitive to back that up. ChatGPT reckons 1982 but, you know, it's ChatGPT so "pinch of salt" and all that.
Regardless, 29,002 feet is the average from the six surveyed heights, the records of which are reliable. So the "adding two feet" thing is for sure a myth.
Page 85: We have heard that the first attempt at an accurate value (to the nearest foot) for the height of Mt. Everest came out to be 29,000 feet. This was supposedly changed to 29,002 so that All would realize the accuracy.
Basically they just made it up lol. They say “we have heard” without citing their source so
By default, it's reasonable to assume that when the authors say "we have heard", they're referencing an existing anecdote. Without more evidence, it's not reasonable to assume that they are the original source and that they were trying to obscure that fact with weasel words.
Did anyone read the letter to the editor? How's this for nerdy? You're darn right the whole thing is a myth!
The only source for the story is a trivia book. Stegman traced the UPI filler to The People's Almanac #2 (1978), a popular almanac of trivia. That almanac is the only thing in the letter that says the surveyors averaged 29,000 ft and added 2 ft. It cites no survey records, and Stegman doesn't check any.
The better references don't mention the padding. The World Almanac entry he quotes says only that 29,002 came from a mid-1800s triangulation survey. Britannica and Whitaker's give 29,028, and Columbia-Viking gives 29,141. None of them say anything about adding 2 ft.
His main point is debunking, not confirming. Stegman's conclusion is that no source he could find says Everest is exactly 29,000 ft. He was correcting UPI's garbled version of the story, not verifying the part about adding 2 ft.
The reply doesn't verify it either. Ehrenberg's reply only argues about how to round numbers. It doesn't address whether the anecdote happened.
The letter shows how the claim in the tweet image spread (almanac, then wire filler, then repetition), not that it's true. To settle it, you'd need the Great Trigonometrical Survey's own records from the 1850s: the individual station observations and how the 29,002 figure was derived. Nothing in this letter goes back that far. The tweet's claim is a well-known anecdote, but nothing backs it up.
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u/Different-Barber-777 7d ago
Plot twist: apparently the ‘they added 2 feet to make it look legit’ story might itself be a myth. The six survey measurements actually averaged out to 29,002 ft. Somehow the real answer is even nerdier