How did they measure Mount Everest before satellites, drones, or even calculators? In today’s episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy explores how 19th-century surveyors pulled off one of the most impressive feats of pre-digital science — calculating the height of the world’s tallest mountain with stunning precision.Long before GPS, the British-led Great Trigonometrical Survey of India used trigonometry, angle measurements, and a whole lot of patience to determine that Peak XV — later renamed Mount Everest — was the highest point on Earth. And the number they came up with? Just 29 feet off from what modern tech says today.You’ll learn about:The math behind the original height calculationWhy they couldn’t just climb itThe forgotten local names of EverestAnd how this entire project rewrote what we knew about the Earth’s surfaceThis is a story of math, ambition, and colonial geography — and one of the most mind-blowing scientific estimates in human history.Sources:Waugh, A. (1856). The Survey of Mount Everest. Royal Geographical Society.Green, C. S. (1999). Surveying Techniques and Early Geographical Discoveries. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 33(4).Royal Geographical Society. (n.d.). History of Mount Everest’s Surveying. Retrieved from www.rgs.orgHeadrick, D. R. (2009). Technology: A World History. Oxford University Press.#MountEverest #EverestFacts #HistoryNerd #SmartestYearEver #DailyLearning #GeoHistory #MountainTrivia #TrigonometricalSurvey #ScienceFacts #WorldGeography #GTSIndia #SurveyingHistory #intothinair #Everest #math Music thanks to Zapsplat.

Ver todos los episodios