On Thursday 03 March 2005 19:39, Pat Naughtin wrote: > Measure the width of the nail on your little finger. It is about > 10 millimetres wide. > Measure the widths of your other three fingers. They are all about > 20 millimetres wide. > Look at the width of your fist across the knuckles. It is about > 100 millimetres wide. > Remember these and you can estimate small lengths and distances quite > readily using your 'handy' references.
I'm about 3/4 size. My little fingernail is 7.5 mm, the middle three fingers add up to about 5 cm, and my fist across the knuckles is about 7.5 cm. When I was a kid, my L (index to thumb at right angles) was a decimeter. Now it's 14.5 cm. One meter is the height of the bottom of my xiphoid (when I'm standing up, which I'm not). Half a meter is nothing special (it's somewhere in my thigh). I just gave someone measurements of my furniture. To get the bookcase height, I put a ruler on top of my head and added 150 cm. > Heights can work the same way. Knowing that the average height of a North > American male is about 1.7 metres and a female is 1.6 metres you can > quickly find the average height people at a party and then estimate > everyone else's height by knowing that the width of your fist is > 100 millimetres or 0.1 metres. By the way, it is quite difficult to > estimate people's height to much greater precision than about > 50 millimetres; so if you are having a height guessing competition its best > to keep your answers to one decimal place. Does anyone make metric robber height gages? phma -- le xruki le ginxre xrixruba xu xrula cu xrani?
