Radhanath Sikdar (1813-1870)

On Top of the World and Beyond

Science-Society Overlap• Modern Science and Indian Society

circa 1800• Little inducement for acquiring

scientific temper• Sikdar a pioneer in spreading technical

education and women’s education

Historico-philosophicalBackground

• Rammohan Roy (1774-1833) pleads for science-based educational system as against the old Sanskrit-based system

• Hindu College established in 1817• Henry Derozio (1809-1831) joins Hindu College

in 1826 as a teacher• Derozio was a rationalist, empiricist and

scepticist, but had no grounding in modern science

• Students became rebellious under his influence• Derozio forced to resign, 1831

Colonizer-Colonized Interface

• British Colonialism and Surveying• War with Tipu Sultan• Col. Lambton and Surveying• George Everest in search of “native” talent• Syed Mir Mohsin and Radhanath Sikdar• Everest praises Mohsin and Sikdar• Everest fails to support Sikdar against British

Magistrate’s injustice• Effacement of Sikdar’s role by British

administration

Radhanath Sikdar

•Meteorologist•Geodesist

Radhanath Sikdar (1813-1870)

• Born Jorasanko, Calcutta (Date of Birth not known)• Educated at Hindu College• Deeply influenced by Derozio (1809-31)• He was an inveterate beef-eater, soldier-basher and

promoter of free marriage, refusing to marry the girl of his mother’s choice

• Newtonian mathematics and physics were taught by Tytler and Ross at the Hindu College

• One of the first Indians to master Newtonian mathematics and physics

• Joined Great Trigonometrical Survey, 1832

Radhanath Sikdar (1813-1870)• Became the right-hand man of George Everest at Dehra Dun in

measuring the Great Arc• Wrote the scientific and technical chapters of the Survey Manual,

1851• Became Supdt of the Calcutta Observatory, 1851 and introduced

many new meteorological methods and processes• Calculated from various readings that Peak XV of the Himalayan

Range was actually the highest in the world, 1852• Retired in 1862 and taught Mathematics at General Assemblies

Institution• Was awarded the Corresponding Membership of Bavaria Natural

History Society under German Philosophical Society in 1864• Died in 1870 at his own villa at Chandan Nagar

From Sikdar’s Diary • 1828 Euclid Bk. I, propos. 29• 1829 Euclid Bks I to IV and Algebra up to Quadratic

Equations• 1830 Euclid Bk. IV, Fluxions [i.e.,. calculus], Maxima

and Minima, Tangenta, Rectifications, Quadrations• 1831 Whole of Euclid's Elements, Spherical

Trigonometry, Fluxions, Taylor's and Maclaurin's Theorems, Kepler's problems

• 1832 Windhouse's Analytical Trigonometry, Jephson's Fluxions, Lagrange's Theorem, Windhouses's Astronomy

The First to Master Newton and Laplace

• 'Dr.Tytler, Professor of Mathematics, thought highly of him, and he and Rajnarain Bysack were the first Hindu who received instruction from him in Newton's Principia.' Indeed, 'he was the first Bengali youth to have learnt the mathematics invented by Newton and Laplace and accomplished great things in science and astronomy.' (Hindoo Patriot, May 23, 1870).

George Everest

Everest Employs Sikdar

• On being employed as a Computor at the office of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, I started studying many other books on Mathematics [i.e., other than the ones mentioned above]. Now [7 October, 1832] I shall leave Calcutta on 15 October to work as a Surveyor at Serunge Base Line. (from Sikdar’s diary)

Everest to Lord Bentinck, 1 July 1831

• … a straight part of the Barrackpore road might be given up for my operations, the old Chitpore road temporarily repaired, and two towers built of masonry for connecting the line with the series of triangles – I accordingly examined the road and had a survey of it, the Result of which was that the part between the 5th and 11th milestones could be used with the addition of two towers

Survey Tower No.1, Nov. 1831

Suvey Tower No.1, Nov. 2011

Survey Tower No.1, Nov. 2011

Survey Tower No.2, Nov. 2011

George Everest on Sikdar• “There are few in India, whether European

or native, that can at all compete with him. Even in Europe these mathematical attainments would rank very high.”

• “There are a few of my instruments that he cannot manage; and none of my computations of which he is not thoroughly master. He can not only apply formulae but investigate them."

Sikdar’s Home, Chandan Nagar

• On coming back from Dehra Dun to Calcutta in 1851 (1849?), Sikdar shifted from Calcutta to a spacious villa by the side of the Ganga at Chandan Nagar, then a French colony. He used to go to the Survey Office at Calcutta from Chandan Nagar -- by train or by river transport? He retired in 1862 and died in 1870 in this house, now dilapidated and almost unknown to anybody.

The Manual of Surveying for India, 1851, 1855

• In part III (On Surveying) and V, the computers have been largely assisted by Babu Radhanath Sikdar, distinguished head of the computing department of the GTSI. The chapters 15, 17 up to 21 inclusive of Part III, and the whole of Part V are entirely his own. Besides he compiled a set of auxiliary tables for the surveying department which were found to be greatly useful.

• Part V consisted of 'Practical Astronomy and its applications to surveying.' The book was reissued in 1855, with the preface intact.

Survey Manual, 1851

1875: “robbery of the dead”• In 1862, Sikdar retired and died in 1870. The third edition of the

manual came out in 1875, without the acknowledgements. Scandalized, a section of Englishmen protested against this. In a two-part article in the Friend of India, 17 and 24 June, 1876 titled 'The Survey of India', Col. John Macdonald condemned this as a "cowardly sin" and "robbery of the dead". He further wrote, 'We feel quite certain that we shall command the sympathy of every highly educated native in India for our determination to rescue the name of one of the greatest Mathematicians which has adorned the honourable list of those who measured and computed the great Indian arc from neglect by those who owe so much to his memory.' (24 June 1876). In an editorial on 16 August 1876, Friend of India wrote, 'Had Sikdar been alive, we would have left it to fight his own battle.'

Sikdar and Mount Everest

Burrard and the Naming Game• Nature in its 10 November 1904 issue carried an

article titled 'Mount Everest: The story of a Long Controversy' by S. G. Burrard, the then Surveyor-General. He wrote:

• About 1852 the chief computer of the office at Calcutta informed Sir Andrew Waugh that a peak designated XV had been found to be higher than any other hitherto measured in the world. The peak was discovered by the computers to have been observed from six different stations; on no occasion had the observer suspected that he was viewing through the telescope the highest point of the earth.

Sikdar’s Contribution

Sikdar’s contribution to the computation was in working out and applying the allowance to be made for a phenomenon called refraction - the bending of straight lines by the density of the Earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic waves from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of altitude. Atmospheric refraction near the ground produces mirages and can make distant objects appear to shimmer or ripple. It is, however, possible to equip a telescope with control systems to compensate for the shift caused by the refraction.

Waugh Pleases EverestRadhanath Sikdar in 1852 reported to

the then Surveyor General, Andrew Waugh, that Himalayan Peak No.XV was actually the tallest in the world. This peak was later named by Waugh as Mount Everest, to please George Everest, who had retired in 1843. Sikdar’s name was mentioned only in passing in the internal correspondence.

Waugh Pleases Everest

Contributions to MeteorologyImmediately after assuming charge of the Calcutta observatory,Sikdar prepared a table for reduction of barometric observations to 32°F for which he had to develop his own formula. It was based upon the physical concept that the temperature reduction was to be applied on two counts: the thermal expansion of the brass scale attached to the barometer and the dilatation of the mercury column in the tube. Sikdar’s work was significant because it made it possible to compare pressure observations taken at different times. A note describing Sikdar’s formula was communicated to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by the Deputy Surveyor General, Col. H. L. Thuillier and it was published by the Journal in 1852 (Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 329-332).

Sikdar FormulaC = B. (t – 320)m – (t – 620) b

1 + (t – 320)mC = sum of the two correctionsB = observed height of the Barometert = Observed temperature of the mercury, and of

the brass scale which are assumed to be equal.m = .000100 Expansion of mercury for 10 of Fahtb = .0000106 Expansion of brass for 10 of Faht320 = Standard temperature of mercury620 = Ditto ditto of brass

Contributions to Meteorology

started in 1853 a time- signalling service for ships, based upon observations of the transit of stars across Calcutta.

RecognitionRadhanath became a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1853 and was inducted as a member of its Meteorology and Physical Science Committee in 1858.

German Philosophical Society Award 1864

Radhanath's mathematical expertise won him in 1864 a Corresponding Membership of the Society of Natural History, Bavaria - a rare honour in those days to be awarded to a foreigner by the highly conservative German Philosophical Society.

Sikdar’s Home, Chandan Nagar

Chandan Nagar Road Named after Sikdar

Science-Society Overlap

• Sikdar a pioneer in spreading technical education and women’s education

• But wrote little about science in vernacular• Was he against popularization of science?• He became a recluse in his later years and died at

Chandan-nagar (then a French colony) in isolation from Calcutta society.

• Overall, he had very little impact on society at large.

• Was it an instance of the scientist being identified with an alien culture ?

Scholar Extraordinary

An isolated island?