Many Years Ago In The 1950's,

my geography master said, 'Everest is 29,000 feet high - exactly, but another few feet were added, 28 feet, so everyone would remember the height of 29,028 feet, (it worked for me as I could always remember the height of it!), well he may or may not have been correct, but even today China and Nepal have a long-standing debate about the height of Mount Everest, now the good news, they are both right, the official Everest snow height of 8,848 metres (29,028 feet) was measured by the Survey of India in 1954, but Chinese mountaineers and researchers climbed Mount Everest in May 2005 to determine its height afresh - and came to a different conclusion, they calculated that the rock height of the peak was about 3.7 metres (11 feet) less than the estimates made in 1954 - that is, that the summit was 8,844.43 metres (29,017 feet), with a margin of error of about 0.21 metres, while it seems more sensible to calculate the height of the mountain by rock instead of snow, which is a slightly more dynamic unit of measurement, Nepal has stuck with the 1954 estimates, this week, however, a compromise appeared to have been reached as officials from China and Nepal agreed that in fact both heights are accurate, 'Both are correct heights, no measurement is absolute, this is a problem of scientific research,' said Raja Ram Chhatkuli, director general of Nepal's survey department, and a delegate, in 1999, an expedition by the National Geographic Society and Boston's Museum of Science used satellite-based technology to measure the height of the snow covered peak, and determined the mountain stood 8,850 metres (29,035 feet) high, they said they were unsure about the height of the rock peak, so according to the NGS it has grown 7 feet since my school days, I guess somewhere in the world a mountain is shrinking!