Man, you are hilarious. "All you need is a thumb. You can take a stick but a thumb, you always have a thumb with you. Just in case you do not have a thumb, just take a stick..." I like your content. This is very educational and at the same time entertaining.
I use a different technique but instead of distance I measure time until dark, something I’m learned as a pilot to calculate how much daylight remained. Simply extend an arm before you and set the edge index finger on horizon. Add fingers till you touch the bottom of the sun. Each finger equal 15 min. Eg, index finger and 3rd fingers between horizon and sun is 30 mins. Works very accurately. Granted if sun is obscured it does present challenges. Otherwise it’s a very quick calculation.
@@danieletognozzi7641 your arm is always the same length, and your hand or fist is always the same width. It's just a matter of working out how your dimensions measure time. My fist at arm's length is one hour, yours might be 40 minutes, it might be 1.20.
Years ago I noticed my Thumbnail was the same height as an "E Type" target at 300m, later on at an important test course I judged the distance of the target at 600m, I was taken back and grilled, almost expelled from the course before I explained my "Thumb/target" method, After a visiting SGM was called to supervise the situation I was given a "Pass" on that part and asked to explain the method again to the others (The target was exactly 600m). Good video.
@@bruceli9094 Because it might have been considered cheating. When I was in track you were allowed cleats to get a grip on the soil. But they could only measure so much length. When I bought mine I had to make sure they would pass and they did because they were screw in type that you could replace. The nut portion sat below the soul of the shoe and made it look longer than it really was. I was at a district meet when someone noticed mine and called a ref who came and measured them. I passed. The problem with those cleats though were they would catch in the sod when practicing during in between actual competition and I almost was on my face several times. lol
I was a light tank gunner in the army, in my country. Our light thanks had no digital scope or so. We used that exact technique to measure shooting distance, but, instead of thumbnails, we used our analogic binoculars that had little measuring lines. Im pretty sure there is a mathematical theorem for this, in Brazil we call it "regra de três" (three numbers rule). Idk what its called in english. Pretty clever of you to figure it out by yourself.
Interesting. In art we were taught to judge proportions, e.g. the ratio of a tree's height to its width, using a pencil or paintbrush held at arm's length, but this is even more useful.
Thanks for that. The reason it works is because the distance to the thumb from your eye of the outstretched arm is approximately 10 times the distance between your pupils. This means that both measurements will have a ratio of one to ten, the distance being 10 times that of the width. The distance of the object is from the thumb, so for very close objects you would need to consider that.
@@waywardspirit7898 unfortunately you need two eyes for this specific trick to work. There are other ways to estimate distance with one eye only, though
I was taught a similar technique as a sawyer, but it was for finding where a tree would land when you fell it. You take a stick the length of your arm and hold it out at arms length, then get it so the top of your hand is at the spot you're going to do your cut and walk from the tree to where the tree and the stick look like the same height and thats where the top of your tree will fall.
This is a great tip. Keep in mind that different people may see more or less of a shift when alternating their view with each eye. The effect this has, is their multiplier may be different than yours (you used "multiply by 10" in the video), but it should still be proportional so it should still work. For example, when I do this, the "shift" I see is perhaps considerably more, so the multiplier, for me, should be less, perhaps 7 or 8 rather than 10. A person can figure out their "personal multiplier" either by: 1) Trial and error repeating the process trying different multipliers until you find the most accurate multiplier, or 2) By pacing off say 100m from an object (tree) and setting a pole or tall stake marking your second "thumb-view" (a second person can help with this), then measure the separation of the tree to the pole (say it was 9m), and calculate the multiplier as the "tree-distance" divided by the "offset-distance", in this example, it would be 100 / 9, so the multiplier would be about "11". If the "offset-distance" measured 14m, it would be 100 / 14 and the multiplier would be about "7".
@@Unsensitive Except due to everyone's differing heights, it effectively makes the triginometry of ever persons 'triangle' a little different. This is why Kevin was going on about how the multiplier can shift for some people and 10 might not be quite accurate for some. It's not just about the distance between the movement due to the changes of which eye is looking at the thumb. It's also about the height of the person. Longer distances seem shorter for taller people, cause it is. Their legs are longer. heh It's far better for everyone to have their own multiplier known for their own purposes and then also sharing with others by saying "For me, I need to multiply by X, but you go ahead and test with Y and Z as well until you find the right one for you." If everyone was the exact same height, then yes; your method would work. But they aren't, so it won't.
@@JohnnyManu40 I had to laugh at the 'height' making a difference to the calculations. Height matters not when your calculations are measured in length. IE: The demonstrator stated his average step was 0.7m and he then gave a rough calculation as to how many steps HE needed to give an approximate distance. Therefore, if you are taller, you take 20 paces at your normal walking pace, measure the distance and divide it by 20 giving you a more accurate (but NEVER exact) length of step. Then you take THAT number to multiply your 'rule of thumb' measurement. This was passed down in our family timber business and was used to great effect when cutting dangerous trees down. And don't even get me started on how you measure the height of a tree to ensure you have enough room to fell it in a confined space, very rudimental too but, once mastered was invaluable👍
@@WeeShoeyDugless If your pace is longer because you are taller, then your steps are less. Your method only works, because I am right. I am just taking less steps than you to figure it out. Instead of trying to make some equation that everyone can use, I am instead saying everyone should figure out the equation that works for them. So long as we are all arriving at the same end answer; the way we get there should not matter. Considering this is a topic about distance, I think that's pretty aptly put. Height matters, and your example proves it. You have to take what would work if everyone was the same height, and adjust it for use with different heights. Think about it... really. Think for a moment. Hard, not simple. Think hard. The distance between a persons eyes have NOTHING to do with all of this. It's the distance perceived to be shifted when closing and opening the alternate eye that is being measured at the end of things. That should be almost roughly the exact same for everyone except with the widest eye spacing and narrowest. Those are called exceptions. They are not the rule, and should never be considered as such. As such, the eye gap doesn't matter as much. The distance shifted from side to side from closing eyes back and forth isn't that much of an appreciable distance. That should always be roughly the same. Always, with slight exception. But height? That changes a lot. And that's why your examples equation even exists. Which is why I am right, you are proving me right while thinking you are correcting me. Now go back to chopping wood. It's clearly your day job.
Thats amazing! I've checked it with the building outside my window and then measured with the sattilite map - absolute accuracy on 700 meters! Thanks a lot!
If you are Interested in TIPS & TRICKS for using this Rule of Thumb or how to do it using only ONE eye , you can check out PART 2. ruclips.net/video/xAKxjCYXuTA/видео.html I Explaine it in more Details in this Video. Have a Nice Day
Yyyalbert, just to help you with your English(which is pretty good), I thought I would let you know, that it’s multiply, and not multiplicate, which is something that a yanki would say……..
Very interesting. I never thought of using one eye, and then the other, but this is calculating based on trigonometry. You make a triangle from the tree to one eye, and then the other. You estimate the difference between the tree (as seen by the first eye) and the position in line with your thumb with the second eye. I didn't know about multiplying it by ten to estimate the distance. The pace count is taught by the US Army to follow a map. You pace off 100 meters so that you know how many paces to walk a certain distance. Thanks for an interesting and informative video.
Pacing not just limited to US Army - anyone who has learned to navigate has it in their arsenal. Interesting that the US army does it's pace in metres though!
What's great about this tip is that it works with any unit. You could use it to approximate miles, meters, or even feet of difference, because the ratios will always be the same. It only relies on a strong ability to estimate the distance between the two positions of your thumb in whatever unit you prefer.
there is another method that also uses the size of the thumb. Together with this information you get an actual distance without having to approximate anything. Also you could get the height of the object or length of it.
I was taught this in the Royal Air Force. Very handy. It’s a life skill more people should know. It’ll help if you’re lost and need to call search and rescue
And so goes the expression… “rule of thumb”!! I honestly never questioned that saying, I always knew it just meant an estimate, and was simply an old expression! Cheers to you!
I saw someone else explaining this trick with a arm and multiplication by 6 or something, and I didn't understand at all. Your explanation was very simple to understand, and even if it's not very efficient at long range, it still gives an idea. Thank you!
@@donrosas Well he says to guess how many meters but for the life of me I don't know how you are to accurately guess this, especially at a far distance. The multiplying by 10 is the easy part but to get the number you are to multiply is very difficult, to me a guess is just a guess that will be wrong more times than it is right.
@@donrosas he is making an educated guess at the distance from one point (i.e. radio tower) in the distance, horizontally to a point that his thumb "moved" to when he switched eyes. In other words, if you see the radio tower, then switch eyes and pick the point (road with a break in the trees or something easy to see) that the thumb moves to at the same distance as the tower, what do you estimate the distance is between them? Then simply multiply that distance by 10 to get the approximate distance both points are from you. Probably gets easier with practice, the hardest part would be the horizontal distance at a longer range. In his case, you could practice by making your guess, then looking at Google maps to get the distance the road in front of him is from the radio tower and see how close your guess is.
@@The_Story_Channel I think it gets better with practice. Try practicing the meters of 'eye jump' on objects you know the size of already. Such as a distant car, a house door or other objects which are of a standard size (little harder in the countryside!) For example: aim your thumb at a car, close your eye, switch eyes and see how many 'car lengths/widths' the jump was. So if your car was, say 6metres and your thumb jumped double the length of the car, multiply 6mx2m = 12m. Then multiply 12 x10 to get your distant measurement. Hope that helps with your practicing!
He sees how much his thumb moves and then said that's about two meters. That's where I get lost. Two meters? That's like six feet. What is two meters here? He has to mean centimeters. I guess???
Hallo, and thank you for your post. I have dyslexia. It is a severe learning disorder of reading and memory. I took algebra 5 times (Spanish 5 times, and other racademic courses, in Jounior and Senior HIgh School, and finally was told to leave at age 19 because I was too old to stay in school) but never could get past it. The U.S. Air Force understands how difficult math is for some people, and has developed their teaching of complicated subjects by simple methods. Distance-measuring would be one of them, but it's not. I look forward to seeing more. At about age 40 I earned a seat in the course on Flight Engineering of fixed wing jets, past it, and became a qualified aircrew member of military cargo jets. No math, just techniques. After military service, I went on to earn an M. A. in English and J.D. (Law). I had to learn how to teach myself, everything. Most dyslexics become class clowns, and juvinile delinquents, or become billionairs, and peopel who design space ships (Elon MusK). Most billionairess in America are dyslexic, as are Hollywood entertainers and prison inmates. You get two thums up! Sgt. Brill, UAF (Ret), THAILAND
Oops! Autocorrect got ya there, when referring to American billionaire it came out “dyslexic”, but should have been “pedo satanist”... dang autocorrect.
I’d say your best days are behind you. But at least you were a cargo guy on a next or whatever. I’ve seen that plane your mate loaded on Iraq or Afghanistan - you know I have ADHD, another bullshit excuse disorder and can’t remember what country. Either way the cargo shifted and the 747 crashed. There are reasons the Americans use the bare minimum of intelligence on their services. Musk is a smart guy and hasn’t got any stupid advice on saying he’s a dyslexic. His company is Space X not Space Excuses.
Thanks for the informative video. This is called a parallax. It's how creatures with stereo vision can perceive depth. Scientists also use a more complex version of this method to determine the distance to objects in the sky, like stars and planets.
Thank you very much for this clear friendly explanation in a lovely landscape. I am a relatively unfit middle aged person with short legs so calculating potentially unwise hiking distances before getting ahead of myself is going to save me and my friends/family a good deal of trouble. I only knew using my thumb as measuring in sketching. Thank you for sharing your helpful tip with us. 😊
The VC used a thumb to measure the distance of a Huey to shoot it down. They would put up their thumb, if the thumb covered the helicopter, it was out of range. If the helicopter stuck out it was in range, for small arms fire
I was taught this by my grand father who had this passed down on to him by his grandfather and then like 10 generations or what ever the number is when they had to fight ottomans .
Different mental abilities need different learning techniques. Not a bad thing, we need the creative "angle" that comes from this. I have a high I.Q., but I understand demonstrations or pictures much better. Also - people who only memorize the technique but don't UNDERSTAND the way something works do not explain it very well.
Your general recommendation of measuring and using body parts for reference is the part of the lesson that I hope no one misses. Hand width when wide spread (left different than right?), distance from elbow to finger tips, others, and especially useful at times (as he demonstrates) is the distance between your steps. Nice contribution. 😊
That was amazing! And I'm glad nature was so kind that the number was 10x instead of some other more complex number. Almost as if it was done on purpose.
Of course the multiply number varies a bit depending mostly on arms length and distance between the eyes, but anyone can calibrate it for their own dimensions. Great video, thanks for posting.
Agreed, I am only 5’4” tall so have relatively short arms. After some experimenting with my tape measure I figured my multiplication factor is closer to 8.
This works really well over short distances where you can accurately estimate the distance on the ground between both sightings. Estimating that distance eg between two trees with no reference is more difficult. The presence at that distance of a known measurement eg a person or a cow etc greatly helps.
exactly what's the point of that measure? no point if I see something very far and I wanna know how many km I am from that point there is no way to be able to measure that.
Yeah "all you have to be able to do to estimate distances is be able to estimate other distances and then do arithmetic to those estimates" seems a little pointless. At that point, just learn to estimate how far away things are directly.
@@Salsmachev It's easier to accurately estimate the width of a landmark on the horizon that you are familiar with (tree, farm, bus, building, cell tower, etc) than it is to guess your distance to that landmark from any given point within sight.
Pretty cool I'll have to try this out when I go out hiking in the summer time. Whenever people talk about closing one eye and then doing the same with the other eye. It always reminds me of forming a triangle with your hand and pointing it at an object to find out your dominant eye. Cool stuff.
Hey works pretty good! Tried it in my living room, there's a wheel chair on the other side of the room so I held my thumb up and sure enough eye to eye it looked like one foot between so I multiplied by 10 and guess what the chair IS ten feet away! Thanks dude that a good trick to have in your bag!🤠👍🙋♂️
Ok, but what I heard him say, and you type, is that you had to guess. He guessed 20, and you 1 and both were correct. What about from his seat to the next ridge? I'll guess 10 miles. What if I'm wrong? I'll get where I'm going, and find out when I get there how far off I was. No help at all.
It works because it is easier to estimate a distance perpendicular to the segment between us and the point of insterest, than the distance in the same segment. I will use it. Thanks!
Hi Albert. Let me return the favour :) And this is crucial..... when making tea NEVER bring to boil with the bag in the pot - I shudder. Boil water throw bag in and immediately take pot from heat. let sit maybe 30 - 60 sec. Do NOT squash the bag - yuk. Happy trails matey. ps. now that looks like a comfy bench. wish it was international standard. seeya.
Nice to see a video that does exactly what it says on the tin, instead of the usual over the top hyperbole rhetoric click bait. I love my walking, so easy helpful tip. Thank you.
Interesting. One important factor is not mentioned, and that's the distance you must hold the stick away from your eyes. The simplicity of this method depends on the ratio of the distance between your eyes (about 60 mm for adults) and the distance from your eyes (or the bridge of your nose) to the stick (about 60 cm for adults). There is an isosceles triangle with a base of 60 mm (distance between eyes) and an altitude of 60 cm, which is the source of the 10:1 ratio. If you remember from geometry that 1) vertical angles are congruent and 2) similar triangles have the same relative proportions, you can then understand that there is a second isosceles triangle with the base being the apparent distance the object moves, and the altitude is the distance from the stick to the object. I suppose you could "calibrate" yourself by marking off a known distance and finding out your true multiplier ratio, which for most people is around 10.
Two things: First, not everyone is right eye dominant. Just blink your eyes alternately and you'll see the jump yyAlbert described. Second, my interocular (eye separation) distance is 10 cm. The distance from my eye to my thumb (arm in front, not to the side) is 70cm. Someone commented on using the arm-eye ratio instead so in my case the multiplier would be 7. I'll have to do some field testing but I really like this rule of thumb and appreciate your video.
Interocular distance of 10 cm ( 100mm) seems rather large..... are you sure? Example....I would say I have a "normal" looking face ( if I do say so myself).....I don't sense I have particularly "wide-set" or "narrow-set" eyes....and my measurements are 65 mm between the pupils of my eyes ( needed to know this for my prescription glasses)....and the distance from the front of my eye to the extended-arm thumb happens to be about 26"....or 66cm ( = 660 mm). Wow...in my case the 660/65 ~ 10X ratio as used in the vid. I wonder if your assertion of the 2 numbers you say apply to you ( 100mm eye/eye...and thumb to eye of 70cm) is correct ????
@Sea Otter I agree with Wil Ferch. I'm a retired Optometrist, and most adults' interocular measurement, (between one pupil to the other) is between 60 and 70 mm (6-7 cm.) 10 cm, as you claim, would be way out of the norm, and if that's really your picture, you don't look like your eyes are abnormally wide. Again, the measurement should be pupil to pupil, NOT from one OUTER corner of your eye to the other OUTER corner (which could be 10 cm,) because your line of sight is through your pupils, not the outer corners.
Good tip! You can actually keep both eyes open, with your thumb out in front of you focus on the object in the distance, you will notice in your periphery the appearance of two thumbs! simply estimate the apparent distance between your thumbs at the object you’re focusing on, And multiply times 10
Good point. We can obtain the two thumb images by focusing on the thumb or focusing on the distant object, with both eyes open. The one eye closed method seems to work bet for me.
@WhiteOak09 With enough practice, you can also use the thumb to gauge the height of an object. Using a rough guide of the average height of said object (in this instance, let's say the tree 🌳),from your perspective against a thumb it can give you a rough idea of how far it must be. This is a must faster method than needing to work out the space between two points, works best against tall objects such as trees and pylons that tend to have a set height (can help to know the difference between types of trees too)
You are one very perceptive and intelligent dude! Thanks for that! Im 53 and an avid outdoorsman, but never knew that. Don't get me wrong, I have my own technique for estimating distance, but your way is just so simple that I just love it!
Additional tip: You can use an height to guess a width in a distance. Target a person (5-6 ft) or an house (10 ft per floor) with a stick. Visualize the height of your target from the top of the stick to your finger. Take your landmarks with each eye. Then turn the stick horizontally and measure how many "heights" you have between the two landmarks. The distance is the height x number of heights x 10. For example I target an house of two stores with no roof (20 ft). Closing each eye, I have two landmarks. Using the stick, I measure they are apart by 3 heights of the house. So the distance from me is 20 ft. x3 x10 = 200 yards. Of course the greater the distance the bigger the inaccuracy.
@@angelofamillionyears4599 Archimedes did. He created a Diopter, a wood "arm" stick with a sliding perpendicular wood piece. He moved the "thumb" until it covered the apparent height of the moon. Before him, Hipparqus had calculated the diameter of the moon as 1/4th of the one of the Earth, by observing the time taken by the moon to escape the shadow of the Earth during moon eclipse. And Erasthotenes had calculated the diameter of the Earth, by the differing angle of the sun at midday between two cities at known distance from each other. As proportion between distance and height of the moon is the same as between distance of the thumb on the wooden arm and height of the wooden thumb, Archimedes could calculate the distance to the moon. Enjoy.
I have determined that my thumb, held at arms' length, covers up one foot at 10 yards. I can use that to estimate the distance to a recognized object. If I see a person in the distance (assumed 5 or 6 feet tall) and my thumb just covers the person up, the distance is 50 to 60 yards. If the person is twice as high as my thumb, the distance is half that. If the person is half the height of my thumb, it is double that. etc...
Instead of metres, steps can also work. Just see how many steps away the distance between the thumb and the object might be and multiply it by 10. In this case the tree and the stick/thumb were ~3 steps away from each other so it took you 30 steps to reach there 😊
When I saw the title of this video I figured it was trigonometry related, but I could only figure that you knew the angles, and you can't solve for sides without knowing at least one side. It didn't even occur to me to use the distance between your eyes as the known side. You could get some pretty accurate measurements just using that trick, although it's not quite the same as this one. I remember being a kid and finding it neat that by alternating which eye was open, it would make it look like things had moved. But I never thought about it any further until watching this video.
Problem is you still have to guess the distance from first position of finger to its second. It greatly reduces the total distance you have to guess, but I personally just suck way too much at guessing distance.
Nice. One thing though…in the Army, when pace counting, we only count when the left foot hits the ground. (I don’t know why left, could be right?) but it’s just as accurate with half as many numbers going through your head.
I got trained on land navigation by a Ranger and Man he got me up to speed really well , Your pace count reminded me of that ,When I was in BNOC Three of us stayed back and plotted our course while the rest if the class hauled ass ! LOL ! The Cadre said they knew someone had trained us really well.
It is a simple trygonometry. Your arm length is about 10 times longer the the distance between your left and right eye (usually 50 cm long arm and 5 centimeters from lef to right eye). So you have one tringle on your side of thumb. And there is a second tringle on oposite side of thumb with the same proportions 10:1. Therefore if your thumb moves semingly 20 meters on the landscape this means that the object is 20meters x 10 from you = 200 meters.
Yeah, the [left eye - right eye - thumb] triangle is similar to the [landmark - position thumb looks at through other eye - thumb] triangle (assuming the left eye - right eye line is parallel to the line between the landmark and the position you see through the other eye line)
Makes sense, but you still need to be guess distance then. LIke I got no clue if my thumb jumps 200meters or 500 meters when I look at the mountain. Huge difference in outcome. But as a quick rule of thumb, okay I guess.
For a minute there, I was questioning my own English. You don't often hear anyone using "multiplicate" in a sentence. It's generally "multiply". Anyway, great explanation & cool video. Nice to see simple things on RUclips once in a while.
This is based on similar triangles; the triangle consisting of the two eyes and the thumb and the triangle consisting of the thumb and the projected points of the thumb on the distant location. The distance between the eyes is about 2 1/2". The distance from the eye to the extended thumb is about 2 1/2 feet, so the ration is closer to 12:1. The entire thing depends on the estimated distance between the two projected points at distance. Without something to establish scale, this is more or less a wild guess.
@@Hadrada. The 'rule of thumb' comes from English Common Law, regarding how large a stick a man could use to beat his wife. The judge was ridiculed for his statement that it was okay if the stick was no bigger around that his thumb. This is why the phrase is now considered offensive.
@@souporcoolguy Except it is a lot easier to guess at the shorter distance that is perpendicular to your line of site. Average diameter of a tree in your area, width of a stop sign or highway sign, etc. could be used as a reference. I'm going to have to give this a try. (And confirm with my range finder rather than pacing it!).
For measuring how much time before sundown, hold your arm out bend your hand at the fingers palm toward you, count the fingers at the horizon to the levels of the sun ,each finger is about 15 minutes
It seems to be a little less than 15 minutes. If I look at the top of my thumb to the bottom of my hand, the whole hand is about an hour. My arms are long, though.
Nice one! I guess it depends on each person's arm's reach and their eye separation. One can easily fix this by doing some tests to calibrate the multiplying factor.
Nice! Hope your still gardening for personal enjoyment if allowed 👍. I finally am able to legally grow for medical. Very happy about it! Though I can't do quantity still, I've definitely increase quality!
I'll give this a try, but you're still having to guess/estimate the difference in distance between left & right eye view. The farther the object the more room for error there will be. I've found with enough practice I'm able to reckon distance to an object within a couple hundred meters fairly well. Beyond that it doesn't really matter in most situations.
Derived from the Pythagorean Theorem, the distance formula is used to find the distance between two points in a plane. The Pythagorean Theorem is based on a right triangle where a and b are the lengths of the legs adjacent to the right angle, and c is the length of the hypotenuse.
Yes , thats the Math behinde it . I would never be able to express myself in english about Pythagoren so i tried it in my simple English . Thanks for this Comment 🍺
That theorem has been documented to have been used long before Pythagoras, and given that math & science is derived from our observations of the natural world, I was gonna suggest this as the possible basis for that particular aspect of learning. That's hardly worth arguing over though, especially here, so I'm just here to note that the pythagorean theorem came to my mind as well👍
If you also have an elevation map, you can use nearby mountain peaks, to roughly estimate how many days it will take to travel that distance. *Take note, if you are using a trail, or bushwhacking, those times of travel will be greatly different. But if you're out there with a map, and walking to the nearest mountain peak, you probably already know this. >If you are new to backcountry travel, and deciding on what to put in your pack, or what to leave behind, a compass, and a map of your surroundings are a few things that are certainly worth the weight to carry.
@darrick steele While I agree, I think it’s important to note, for the average person, a map and a compass are of very little use if you don’t know anything about orienteering. I’d say most people’s “knowledge” is based off television, and they think that just having a compass and knowing where North is all there is to it.
@@darwinsaye For sure, people who are going into the backcountry, should first understand the basics, but even just knowing that you're not walking in a circle, all day, can be better than no compass at all. If a person does have an elevation map, they probably already know the basics. But I'd rather see someone who doesn't know how to read a map, at least have that compass. If they choose to keep walking north (although where I'm from that's probably the worst direction) at least they are not backtracking or wasting miles. I would also think, that if a person didn't know anything at all, about these things, if they went out and got a compass, at least some of those new compass owners would look into learning the basics. If they don't, then hey, at least we tried.
It might be a little easier to estimate a smaller distance in the horizon, perpendicular to your line of sight, than a longer distance between you and an object, but it all still rests on your estimate. If you are good at estimating one, you'll be good as well at estimating the other. I've never felt I needed such tricks to estimate the distance of an object and I doubt it is going to improve anyone's estimates. It's hard to imagine a situation where this can help, but it is curious nonetheless.
@@rjbradlow , I guess you are thinking in terms of military precision, maybe for artillery fire. I've never been in the military. As a mountaineer or other outdoors person, one would never need such precision.
Well, there was a bit of math, but even the mathematically impared (like myself) can figure this one out. Very nice... i'm gonna learn this one to amaze my friends. Who knows, could be a party trick that saves my life one day.
First, thanks for teaching me this. I know that it's simple for people to understand, but everyone is built different. And I'm built dumb. Secondly, I am so happy to finally find a video recommended to me that is not AI garbage.
How do you know that your thumb appearing to move that much is 2 meters? Do you have to test it out on some known distances, kind of like figuring out how long your paces are? If you hold your thumb out arm's length and look through each eye, your thumb will always seem to move the same amount. If you're looking at a mountain peak in the distance, what would that tell you about the distance of the mountain peak? I think I must have missed something ...
Hey , you have to guess The more you try the better you get with it . Yes , It gets a little trickyer in the long Distance . There are some Helpfull tricks that you can use for guesssing in long and short Distances and i might make another Video to it because im a bad writer .
@@yyyalbert Oh! OK. You are guessing the tree width (actually, half width) is two meters. So, it is better to target a known object, I suppose. Thanks.
Try to imagined something you know the size of , your car for example .. in my case of 2 meters I imagined my friend who is allmost 2 meters high , beside the Tree like he would be chilling on the Beach . I know him for years , i saw him from diffrent Distances . So guessing was easier for me Hope it helps
This is what they used to measure the distance to stars before other methods were developed but instead of using the distance between your eyes for the parallax they used opposite sides of the sun.
@@rhymereason3449 depends on the distance. You can't use redshift for close objects and you can't use parallax for far objects. Astronomers often call it a "distance ladder" for that reason. The methods build upon one another
The Sun and the Moon, from our perspective move their width in the sky every hour. That's why an hour is an hour. Egyptians ya know.... Anyhow that works out to be 15degrees at an Equinox. 15*12=180 plus night 180. Earth time is not metric nor is classic geometry or astronomy. Metric not being naturally observed, but contrived. The rule of thumb was a Greek and Roman method of distance guessing by trig (probably earlier too). The shift is 4" per thumb width...aka your 10cm, three of those make a foot. Yes the multiplier for most of us is about 7.
The problem is, you aren't going to use it when walking towards a tree. You're going to use it when walking towards that mountain and you can guess the distance to the mountain just about as easy as you can guess the distance between two points on it.
Applying this trick, i figured out that i am 6.7 feet away from my angry wife
😂
Lol
Angry wife...which finger did you use to measure?
@@g2s2m19 people like you turn humour into vulgarity. Will NOT go to your level and respond.
@@LaHandleAbhiHe’s having a laugh. Take a chill pill.
Man, you are hilarious. "All you need is a thumb. You can take a stick but a thumb, you always have a thumb with you. Just in case you do not have a thumb, just take a stick..." I like your content. This is very educational and at the same time entertaining.
But how do you pick up a stick without any thumbs?!
@@chrishince8947 that's easy. Use remaining fingers as chop sticks. 😊 God bless you.
"What if I don't have arms?"
"Now hear me out, you're gonna have to lay down for this one..." 😂
@dommyboysmith 😂
@@yyyalbert🤣🤣
I use a different technique but instead of distance I measure time until dark, something I’m learned as a pilot to calculate how much daylight remained. Simply extend an arm before you and set the edge index finger on horizon. Add fingers till you touch the bottom of the sun. Each finger equal 15 min. Eg, index finger and 3rd fingers between horizon and sun is 30 mins. Works very accurately. Granted if sun is obscured it does present challenges. Otherwise it’s a very quick calculation.
My dad taught me the same thing when I was a kid.
extend an arm before you 👨🏻🎨🇾🇪🔄
I am a 2mt tall skinny man with long arms, my thin thumb is further from my eye and fucks up all the calculations
@@danieletognozzi7641 your arm is always the same length, and your hand or fist is always the same width. It's just a matter of working out how your dimensions measure time.
My fist at arm's length is one hour, yours might be 40 minutes, it might be 1.20.
I learned it from Man vs. wild show. Where bear Grylls uses it many times
Years ago I noticed my Thumbnail was the same height as an "E Type" target at 300m, later on at an important test course I judged the distance of the target at 600m, I was taken back and grilled, almost expelled from the course before I explained my "Thumb/target" method, After a visiting SGM was called to supervise the situation I was given a "Pass" on that part and asked to explain the method again to the others (The target was exactly 600m). Good video.
Why were you grilled for no reason?
@@bruceli9094 lmao i agree especially when 600 is such a round number, like 625 or something is a bit more sus
@@bruceli9094
Because it might have been considered cheating.
When I was in track you were allowed cleats to get a grip on the soil. But they could only measure so much length. When I bought mine I had to make sure they would pass and they did because they were screw in type that you could replace. The nut portion sat below the soul of the shoe and made it look longer than it really was. I was at a district meet when someone noticed mine and called a ref who came and measured them. I passed. The problem with those cleats though were they would catch in the sod when practicing during in between actual competition and I almost was on my face several times. lol
I was a light tank gunner in the army, in my country. Our light thanks had no digital scope or so. We used that exact technique to measure shooting distance, but, instead of thumbnails, we used our analogic binoculars that had little measuring lines.
Im pretty sure there is a mathematical theorem for this, in Brazil we call it "regra de três" (three numbers rule). Idk what its called in english.
Pretty clever of you to figure it out by yourself.
@brucelie9094
because military bozos
I had only ever used the ‘rule of thumb’ as a measuring aid in art, I have never seen it used like this - how useful - thank you!
They’ve thought us this technique while we ‘re in army.🙂
Interesting. In art we were taught to judge proportions, e.g. the ratio of a tree's height to its width, using a pencil or paintbrush held at arm's length, but this is even more useful.
Thanks for that. The reason it works is because the distance to the thumb from your eye of the outstretched arm is approximately 10 times the distance between your pupils. This means that both measurements will have a ratio of one to ten, the distance being 10 times that of the width. The distance of the object is from the thumb, so for very close objects you would need to consider that.
Would it work if I had cross eyes?
@@PChan-yt4uf yes, you only need to check and correct for a custom measure and multiplier adapted to your particular case.
@@Factor-Vitae What if I have a glass eye?
@@waywardspirit7898 unfortunately you need two eyes for this specific trick to work. There are other ways to estimate distance with one eye only, though
@@waywardspirit7898😂
I was taught a similar technique as a sawyer, but it was for finding where a tree would land when you fell it.
You take a stick the length of your arm and hold it out at arms length, then get it so the top of your hand is at the spot you're going to do your cut and walk from the tree to where the tree and the stick look like the same height and thats where the top of your tree will fall.
Very interesting 👍
I'll try this. Thanks.
Trigonometry in action! I've taught this trick to multiple arborists.
This is a great tip. Keep in mind that different people may see more or less of a shift when alternating their view with each eye. The effect this has, is their multiplier may be different than yours (you used "multiply by 10" in the video), but it should still be proportional so it should still work. For example, when I do this, the "shift" I see is perhaps considerably more, so the multiplier, for me, should be less, perhaps 7 or 8 rather than 10.
A person can figure out their "personal multiplier" either by:
1) Trial and error repeating the process trying different multipliers until you find the most accurate multiplier, or
2) By pacing off say 100m from an object (tree) and setting a pole or tall stake marking your second "thumb-view" (a second person can help with this), then measure the separation of the tree to the pole (say it was 9m), and calculate the multiplier as the "tree-distance" divided by the "offset-distance", in this example, it would be 100 / 9, so the multiplier would be about "11". If the "offset-distance" measured 14m, it would be 100 / 14 and the multiplier would be about "7".
Trial and error is probably the best way for most people to get a handle on their own 'multiplier'.
@@JohnnyManu40 get a few people and measure the distance between their eyes could give a metric to get everyone the proper multiplier too.
@@Unsensitive Except due to everyone's differing heights, it effectively makes the triginometry of ever persons 'triangle' a little different. This is why Kevin was going on about how the multiplier can shift for some people and 10 might not be quite accurate for some. It's not just about the distance between the movement due to the changes of which eye is looking at the thumb. It's also about the height of the person. Longer distances seem shorter for taller people, cause it is. Their legs are longer. heh
It's far better for everyone to have their own multiplier known for their own purposes and then also sharing with others by saying "For me, I need to multiply by X, but you go ahead and test with Y and Z as well until you find the right one for you."
If everyone was the exact same height, then yes; your method would work. But they aren't, so it won't.
@@JohnnyManu40 I had to laugh at the 'height' making a difference to the calculations.
Height matters not when your calculations are measured in length.
IE: The demonstrator stated his average step was 0.7m and he then gave a rough calculation as to how many steps HE needed to give an approximate distance.
Therefore, if you are taller, you take 20 paces at your normal walking pace, measure the distance and divide it by 20 giving you a more accurate (but NEVER exact) length of step.
Then you take THAT number to multiply your 'rule of thumb' measurement.
This was passed down in our family timber business and was used to great effect when cutting dangerous trees down.
And don't even get me started on how you measure the height of a tree to ensure you have enough room to fell it in a confined space, very rudimental too but, once mastered was invaluable👍
@@WeeShoeyDugless If your pace is longer because you are taller, then your steps are less. Your method only works, because I am right. I am just taking less steps than you to figure it out. Instead of trying to make some equation that everyone can use, I am instead saying everyone should figure out the equation that works for them.
So long as we are all arriving at the same end answer; the way we get there should not matter.
Considering this is a topic about distance, I think that's pretty aptly put.
Height matters, and your example proves it. You have to take what would work if everyone was the same height, and adjust it for use with different heights. Think about it... really. Think for a moment. Hard, not simple. Think hard.
The distance between a persons eyes have NOTHING to do with all of this. It's the distance perceived to be shifted when closing and opening the alternate eye that is being measured at the end of things. That should be almost roughly the exact same for everyone except with the widest eye spacing and narrowest. Those are called exceptions. They are not the rule, and should never be considered as such. As such, the eye gap doesn't matter as much. The distance shifted from side to side from closing eyes back and forth isn't that much of an appreciable distance. That should always be roughly the same. Always, with slight exception.
But height? That changes a lot. And that's why your examples equation even exists. Which is why I am right, you are proving me right while thinking you are correcting me.
Now go back to chopping wood. It's clearly your day job.
Thats amazing! I've checked it with the building outside my window and then measured with the sattilite map - absolute accuracy on 700 meters! Thanks a lot!
Please use this method to measure the distance to the moon and sun !! They are not fat away. then post
If you are Interested in TIPS & TRICKS for using this Rule of Thumb
or how to do it using only ONE eye , you can check out PART 2.
ruclips.net/video/xAKxjCYXuTA/видео.html
I Explaine it in more Details in this Video.
Have a Nice Day
It's only fooling own mind , i can say it by seeing with bare eyes
👍
Yyyalbert, just to help you with your English(which is pretty good), I thought I would let you know, that it’s multiply, and not multiplicate, which is something that a yanki would say……..
Well, where do the 2 metres come from at a sudden at 1.56 seconds ?@@abyay6515
Very interesting. I never thought of using one eye, and then the other, but this is calculating based on trigonometry. You make a triangle from the tree to one eye, and then the other. You estimate the difference between the tree (as seen by the first eye) and the position in line with your thumb with the second eye. I didn't know about multiplying it by ten to estimate the distance. The pace count is taught by the US Army to follow a map. You pace off 100 meters so that you know how many paces to walk a certain distance. Thanks for an interesting and informative video.
Thank you too for the great Infos 🍺
Pacing not just limited to US Army - anyone who has learned to navigate has it in their arsenal. Interesting that the US army does it's pace in metres though!
Few years ago we had alot US Soldiers here where i live in Europa, they knew what a meter , cm was.
I thought rule of thumb had to do with the size of the switch you beat your children with...
I could see a situation on water where you can't pace a distance, using calculations would be the option in that environment.
OK now I am 68 years old and I never heard that about the thumb rule. That was so good I Sub. Hi from Texas USA
👋
And thank you
What's great about this tip is that it works with any unit. You could use it to approximate miles, meters, or even feet of difference, because the ratios will always be the same. It only relies on a strong ability to estimate the distance between the two positions of your thumb in whatever unit you prefer.
there is another method that also uses the size of the thumb. Together with this information you get an actual distance without having to approximate anything. Also you could get the height of the object or length of it.
how does it work?
I was taught this in the Royal Air Force. Very handy. It’s a life skill more people should know. It’ll help if you’re lost and need to call search and rescue
Please use this method to measure the distance to the moon and sun !! They are not fat away. then post
And so goes the expression… “rule of thumb”!! I honestly never questioned that saying, I always knew it just meant an estimate, and was simply an old expression! Cheers to you!
🍺
Its actually reference to how wide yr thumb is is the width of the stick u are aloud to smack yr wife with
I saw someone else explaining this trick with a arm and multiplication by 6 or something, and I didn't understand at all.
Your explanation was very simple to understand, and even if it's not very efficient at long range, it still gives an idea.
Thank you!
I'm so confused I don't understand how he was coming up with his numbers
@@donrosas Well he says to guess how many meters but for the life of me I don't know how you are to accurately guess this, especially at a far distance. The multiplying by 10 is the easy part but to get the number you are to multiply is very difficult, to me a guess is just a guess that will be wrong more times than it is right.
@@donrosas he is making an educated guess at the distance from one point (i.e. radio tower) in the distance, horizontally to a point that his thumb "moved" to when he switched eyes. In other words, if you see the radio tower, then switch eyes and pick the point (road with a break in the trees or something easy to see) that the thumb moves to at the same distance as the tower, what do you estimate the distance is between them? Then simply multiply that distance by 10 to get the approximate distance both points are from you. Probably gets easier with practice, the hardest part would be the horizontal distance at a longer range. In his case, you could practice by making your guess, then looking at Google maps to get the distance the road in front of him is from the radio tower and see how close your guess is.
@@The_Story_Channel I think it gets better with practice. Try practicing the meters of 'eye jump' on objects you know the size of already. Such as a distant car, a house door or other objects which are of a standard size (little harder in the countryside!) For example: aim your thumb at a car, close your eye, switch eyes and see how many 'car lengths/widths' the jump was. So if your car was, say 6metres and your thumb jumped double the length of the car, multiply 6mx2m = 12m. Then multiply 12 x10 to get your distant measurement. Hope that helps with your practicing!
He sees how much his thumb moves and then said that's about two meters. That's where I get lost. Two meters? That's like six feet. What is two meters here? He has to mean centimeters. I guess???
Hallo, and thank you for your post. I have dyslexia. It is a severe learning disorder of reading and memory. I took algebra 5 times (Spanish 5 times, and other racademic courses, in Jounior and Senior HIgh School, and finally was told to leave at age 19 because I was too old to stay in school) but never could get past it. The U.S. Air Force understands how difficult math is for some people, and has developed their teaching of complicated subjects by simple methods. Distance-measuring would be one of them, but it's not. I look forward to seeing more. At about age 40 I earned a seat in the course on Flight Engineering of fixed wing jets, past it, and became a qualified aircrew member of military cargo jets. No math, just techniques. After military service, I went on to earn an M. A. in English and J.D. (Law). I had to learn how to teach myself, everything. Most dyslexics become class clowns, and juvinile delinquents, or become billionairs, and peopel who design space ships (Elon MusK). Most billionairess in America are dyslexic, as are Hollywood entertainers and prison inmates. You get two thums up! Sgt. Brill, UAF (Ret), THAILAND
Holy Cow that explains a lot to me and at 57 there is no time in worrying about it : (
Oops! Autocorrect got ya there, when referring to American billionaire it came out “dyslexic”, but should have been “pedo satanist”... dang autocorrect.
@@j.crizzle8942 😂😂😂
I’d say your best days are behind you. But at least you were a cargo guy on a next or whatever. I’ve seen that plane your mate loaded on Iraq or Afghanistan - you know I have ADHD, another bullshit excuse disorder and can’t remember what country. Either way the cargo shifted and the 747 crashed. There are reasons the Americans use the bare minimum of intelligence on their services. Musk is a smart guy and hasn’t got any stupid advice on saying he’s a dyslexic. His company is Space X not Space Excuses.
a lot of what you just said just is false and isn't true at all.
I watched a cpl othr videos tht was much more complicated. I didn't get it. Thank u 4 simplifying it. 😊
Thank you too
Thanks for the informative video. This is called a parallax. It's how creatures with stereo vision can perceive depth. Scientists also use a more complex version of this method to determine the distance to objects in the sky, like stars and planets.
Thank you very much for this clear friendly explanation in a lovely landscape. I am a relatively unfit middle aged person with short legs so calculating potentially unwise hiking distances before getting ahead of myself is going to save me and my friends/family a good deal of trouble. I only knew using my thumb as measuring in sketching. Thank you for sharing your helpful tip with us. 😊
I was taught this in the US Army by a old Vietnam veteran who was my platoon Sgt back in 88
The VC used a thumb to measure the distance of a Huey to shoot it down. They would put up their thumb, if the thumb covered the helicopter, it was out of range. If the helicopter stuck out it was in range, for small arms fire
Thank you for the info but you're not getting a thumbs up for it.
@@PetCactusA_HarmlessLittlePrick 😆
@@yodasmomisondrugs7959 Your welcome.
I was taught this by my grand father who had this passed down on to him by his grandfather and then like 10 generations or what ever the number is when they had to fight ottomans .
You explained it really well.
I somehow yesterday saw somebody explaining it, but didn't get it at all.
Thank you.
Thank you too
Different mental abilities need different learning techniques. Not a bad thing, we need the creative "angle" that comes from this.
I have a high I.Q., but I understand demonstrations or pictures much better.
Also - people who only memorize the technique but don't UNDERSTAND the way something works do not explain it very well.
Your general recommendation of measuring and using body parts for reference is the part of the lesson that I hope no one misses. Hand width when wide spread (left different than right?), distance from elbow to finger tips, others, and especially useful at times (as he demonstrates) is the distance between your steps. Nice contribution. 😊
This is easy and extremely useful, I can't believe more people don't know this! Thank you for this knowlodge!
That was amazing! And I'm glad nature was so kind that the number was 10x instead of some other more complex number. Almost as if it was done on purpose.
That isn't nature. That is man using numbers, invented by man. Just like that golden ratio stuff. Someone just made it up and made it work.
It was on purpose. Numbers are incredible.. and so is GOD who created them!!!
yea...Almost like it was done on purpose... lol
Basic cherry picking fallacy. Count the time the number seems rounded and meaningful, ignore the countless times the number isn't.
Cry more. God hears you...
Many thanks, watching two-years later, though information is timeless, thanks again, wishing you well.
Excellent advise, I have spent in the past a lot of time in the countryside and never heard of that simple method. Just subcribed.
Brilliant uncomplicated and light-hearted insight...👍 Thank you for sharing.🙂
Wowww.. Dats AMAZING thanks 4 da quick lesson! Definitely gonna need this TOOL in life!
Of course the multiply number varies a bit depending mostly on arms length and distance between the eyes, but anyone can calibrate it for their own dimensions. Great video, thanks for posting.
Agreed, I am only 5’4” tall so have relatively short arms. After some experimenting with my tape measure I figured my multiplication factor is closer to 8.
@@treefuzz7509 I'm 5'3", thanks for that!
My eyes are unusually far apart... I cannot use binoculars or dual optic microscopes without the eclipse effect. So I need to account for that.
This works really well over short distances where you can accurately estimate the distance on the ground between both sightings. Estimating that distance eg between two trees with no reference is more difficult. The presence at that distance of a known measurement eg a person or a cow etc greatly helps.
exactly what's the point of that measure? no point if I see something very far and I wanna know how many km I am from that point there is no way to be able to measure that.
Maybe with some practice you can learn what a certain number of kilometers looks like.
Yeah "all you have to be able to do to estimate distances is be able to estimate other distances and then do arithmetic to those estimates" seems a little pointless. At that point, just learn to estimate how far away things are directly.
@@Salsmachev It's easier to accurately estimate the width of a landmark on the horizon that you are familiar with (tree, farm, bus, building, cell tower, etc) than it is to guess your distance to that landmark from any given point within sight.
Pretty cool I'll have to try this out when I go out hiking in the summer time. Whenever people talk about closing one eye and then doing the same with the other eye. It always reminds me of forming a triangle with your hand and pointing it at an object to find out your dominant eye. Cool stuff.
I didnt know that one with the Triangle .
Cool , thanks
That is very cool. As a teacher, I'm sharing it with my students.
Hey works pretty good! Tried it in my living room, there's a wheel chair on the other side of the room so I held my thumb up and sure enough eye to eye it looked like one foot between so I multiplied by 10 and guess what the chair IS ten feet away! Thanks dude that a good trick to have in your bag!🤠👍🙋♂️
Ok, but what I heard him say, and you type, is that you had to guess. He guessed 20, and you 1 and both were correct.
What about from his seat to the next ridge? I'll guess 10 miles. What if I'm wrong? I'll get where I'm going, and find out when I get there how far off I was. No help at all.
Greetings from Serbia! Liked both of your videos, thank you for the tips!
It works because it is easier to estimate a distance perpendicular to the segment between us and the point of insterest, than the distance in the same segment. I will use it. Thanks!
Hi Albert. Let me return the favour :) And this is crucial..... when making tea NEVER bring to boil with the bag in the pot - I shudder. Boil water throw bag in and immediately take pot from heat. let sit maybe 30 - 60 sec. Do NOT squash the bag - yuk. Happy trails matey.
ps. now that looks like a comfy bench. wish it was international standard. seeya.
Nice to see a video that does exactly what it says on the tin, instead of the usual over the top hyperbole rhetoric click bait. I love my walking, so easy helpful tip. Thank you.
that is because it is not some screaming self obsessed American !
Interesting. One important factor is not mentioned, and that's the distance you must hold the stick away from your eyes. The simplicity of this method depends on the ratio of the distance between your eyes (about 60 mm for adults) and the distance from your eyes (or the bridge of your nose) to the stick (about 60 cm for adults). There is an isosceles triangle with a base of 60 mm (distance between eyes) and an altitude of 60 cm, which is the source of the 10:1 ratio. If you remember from geometry that 1) vertical angles are congruent and 2) similar triangles have the same relative proportions, you can then understand that there is a second isosceles triangle with the base being the apparent distance the object moves, and the altitude is the distance from the stick to the object. I suppose you could "calibrate" yourself by marking off a known distance and finding out your true multiplier ratio, which for most people is around 10.
Thank you ! Nice video
...what if the person is left with only one eye?🙏
Yep u a math teacher
Watch my latest video , i explaine how you can use this using one eye
@@yyyalbertbro how 10 comes?
This would definitely become more difficult to calculate the further the destination but handy to know better than nothing thanks for sharing 👍😊
Hello from Rocky Mnts. usa!!! 👍🏼 I always wondered about that technique.. love it thanks
👋 hello . Thank you
I love rocky Mountains , i wont to go there one Day
Two things: First, not everyone is right eye dominant. Just blink your eyes alternately and you'll see the jump yyAlbert described. Second, my interocular (eye separation) distance is 10 cm. The distance from my eye to my thumb (arm in front, not to the side) is 70cm. Someone commented on using the arm-eye ratio instead so in my case the multiplier would be 7. I'll have to do some field testing but I really like this rule of thumb and appreciate your video.
Hey! I'll wait for the results!
🙄
Eye dominance doesn't matter. There's still parallax which is what you rely on.
Interocular distance of 10 cm ( 100mm) seems rather large..... are you sure? Example....I would say I have a "normal" looking face ( if I do say so myself).....I don't sense I have particularly "wide-set" or "narrow-set" eyes....and my measurements are 65 mm between the pupils of my eyes ( needed to know this for my prescription glasses)....and the distance from the front of my eye to the extended-arm thumb happens to be about 26"....or 66cm ( = 660 mm). Wow...in my case the 660/65 ~ 10X ratio as used in the vid. I wonder if your assertion of the 2 numbers you say apply to you ( 100mm eye/eye...and thumb to eye of 70cm) is correct ????
@Sea Otter I agree with Wil Ferch. I'm a retired Optometrist, and most adults' interocular measurement, (between one pupil to the other) is between 60 and 70 mm (6-7 cm.) 10 cm, as you claim, would be way out of the norm, and if that's really your picture, you don't look like your eyes are abnormally wide. Again, the measurement should be pupil to pupil, NOT from one OUTER corner of your eye to the other OUTER corner (which could be 10 cm,) because your line of sight is through your pupils, not the outer corners.
Good tip! You can actually keep both eyes open, with your thumb out in front of you focus on the object in the distance, you will notice in your periphery the appearance of two thumbs! simply estimate the apparent distance between your thumbs at the object you’re focusing on, And multiply times 10
Good point. We can obtain the two thumb images by focusing on the thumb or focusing on the distant object, with both eyes open. The one eye closed method seems to work bet for me.
Are there aeasy way to judge the space between the thumbs?
@WhiteOak09 Yes, again use a thumb to gauge the space between points.
Don't worry too much about exact distances, it's only to get a rough idea.
@@ObsessiveGeek thanks 😊
@WhiteOak09 With enough practice, you can also use the thumb to gauge the height of an object.
Using a rough guide of the average height of said object (in this instance, let's say the tree 🌳),from your perspective against a thumb it can give you a rough idea of how far it must be.
This is a must faster method than needing to work out the space between two points, works best against tall objects such as trees and pylons that tend to have a set height (can help to know the difference between types of trees too)
You are one very perceptive and intelligent dude! Thanks for that! Im 53 and an avid outdoorsman, but never knew that. Don't get me wrong, I have my own technique for estimating distance, but your way is just so simple that I just love it!
Thank you 🍺
“You always have a thumb with you…” had me from that moment onwards - subscribed!
Happy New Year!
Thank you , happy new year
Additional tip: You can use an height to guess a width in a distance.
Target a person (5-6 ft) or an house (10 ft per floor) with a stick. Visualize the height of your target from the top of the stick to your finger. Take your landmarks with each eye. Then turn the stick horizontally and measure how many "heights" you have between the two landmarks. The distance is the height x number of heights x 10.
For example I target an house of two stores with no roof (20 ft). Closing each eye, I have two landmarks. Using the stick, I measure they are apart by 3 heights of the house. So the distance from me is 20 ft. x3 x10 = 200 yards.
Of course the greater the distance the bigger the inaccuracy.
Interesting! :)
@@micahhawkins8233 Obvious Brit, Why? I know of nobody who would word it like that.
Please use this method to measure the distance to the moon and sun !! They are not fat away. then post
@@angelofamillionyears4599 You just did not understand the video, did you?
@@angelofamillionyears4599 Archimedes did. He created a Diopter, a wood "arm" stick with a sliding perpendicular wood piece. He moved the "thumb" until it covered the apparent height of the moon.
Before him, Hipparqus had calculated the diameter of the moon as 1/4th of the one of the Earth, by observing the time taken by the moon to escape the shadow of the Earth during moon eclipse.
And Erasthotenes had calculated the diameter of the Earth, by the differing angle of the sun at midday between two cities at known distance from each other.
As proportion between distance and height of the moon is the same as between distance of the thumb on the wooden arm and height of the wooden thumb, Archimedes could calculate the distance to the moon.
Enjoy.
I wish I’d known about this a long time ago! It’s great! 👍🏼
"Just in case you don't have a thumb with you..." yyy, you are awesome. Thank you for this helpful and practical video.
I have determined that my thumb, held at arms' length, covers up one foot at 10 yards. I can use that to estimate the distance to a recognized object. If I see a person in the distance (assumed 5 or 6 feet tall) and my thumb just covers the person up, the distance is 50 to 60 yards. If the person is twice as high as my thumb, the distance is half that. If the person is half the height of my thumb, it is double that. etc...
Hey , this is very interesting
This would be useful for archery 👍
Thank you Guru for this easy method for measuring distance, we tracker have to keep in mind. ❤
💪
Thanks for the useful video. I hope you keep enjoying what looks like a wholesome and relaxed life
I always carry a spare thumb just in case .Good info 👍
hahahaha . Thank you
Instead of metres, steps can also work. Just see how many steps away the distance between the thumb and the object might be and multiply it by 10. In this case the tree and the stick/thumb were ~3 steps away from each other so it took you 30 steps to reach there 😊
E
Can I use inches instead?
@@marioadiez you can but then I am not sure if multiplying it by 10 would give an accurate measure. Maybe some other number
When I saw the title of this video I figured it was trigonometry related, but I could only figure that you knew the angles, and you can't solve for sides without knowing at least one side. It didn't even occur to me to use the distance between your eyes as the known side. You could get some pretty accurate measurements just using that trick, although it's not quite the same as this one. I remember being a kid and finding it neat that by alternating which eye was open, it would make it look like things had moved. But I never thought about it any further until watching this video.
Problem is you still have to guess the distance from first position of finger to its second. It greatly reduces the total distance you have to guess, but I personally just suck way too much at guessing distance.
i understand , me too . But you get better with practice . Start with shorter Distances
Try it with something that you roughly know the width of at first. Like a trailer or a car. Should make the guessing easier.
This is nice, now i can measure distance and combine it with other thumb rule i learn, i can guess the tall and distance of an object!
Wow your life looks so calm and green . Love your life
Nice. One thing though…in the Army, when pace counting, we only count when the left foot hits the ground. (I don’t know why left, could be right?) but it’s just as accurate with half as many numbers going through your head.
Thanks , thats a great Tip 💪
A Roman pace was two steps. One thousand of them was a mille pacem, the English mile. Forget how it came to be 1,760 yards.
I got trained on land navigation by a Ranger and Man he got me up to speed really well , Your pace count reminded me of that ,When I was in BNOC Three of us stayed back and plotted our course while the rest if the class hauled ass ! LOL ! The Cadre said they knew someone had trained us really well.
Remember when my dad showed me this trick 55 years ago
If you are in England, Ireland , Japan or S. Africa, you must use the left foot. In most other countries you use the right.
It is a simple trygonometry. Your arm length is about 10 times longer the the distance between your left and right eye (usually 50 cm long arm and 5 centimeters from lef to right eye). So you have one tringle on your side of thumb. And there is a second tringle on oposite side of thumb with the same proportions 10:1. Therefore if your thumb moves semingly 20 meters on the landscape this means that the object is 20meters x 10 from you = 200 meters.
Yeah, the [left eye - right eye - thumb] triangle is similar to the [landmark - position thumb looks at through other eye - thumb] triangle (assuming the left eye - right eye line is parallel to the line between the landmark and the position you see through the other eye line)
Makes sense, but you still need to be guess distance then. LIke I got no clue if my thumb jumps 200meters or 500 meters when I look at the mountain. Huge difference in outcome. But as a quick rule of thumb, okay I guess.
You need to find an object of known size like house, car or tree. Without an oject of known size at the distance, this wil not work.@@obiwanfisher537
For a minute there, I was questioning my own English. You don't often hear anyone using "multiplicate" in a sentence. It's generally "multiply". Anyway, great explanation & cool video. Nice to see simple things on RUclips once in a while.
Please do more content like this.
Very helpful.
Hey , great to hear that it Helps . I will try
Helpful for what? How it when you gonna use this?
Awesome and simple. Thanks for taking the time to explain.
i liked the calm easy entrance ... it was nice
and the smile adds to it
good luck man
Thanks 💪 . Have a good Weekend
This is based on similar triangles; the triangle consisting of the two eyes and the thumb and the triangle consisting of the thumb and the projected points of the thumb on the distant location. The distance between the eyes is about 2 1/2". The distance from the eye to the extended thumb is about 2 1/2 feet, so the ration is closer to 12:1. The entire thing depends on the estimated distance between the two projected points at distance. Without something to establish scale, this is more or less a wild guess.
Exactly, I think I would be better off just estimating the distance without wasting time staring at my thumb.
Great summation! Seriously. I would say that the man made a calculated guess and that is exactly what “rule of thumb” brings to mind. 🙂
@@mitchellpugh497 rule of thumb is a saying that comes from archery
@@Hadrada. The 'rule of thumb' comes from English Common Law, regarding how large a stick a man could use to beat his wife. The judge was ridiculed for his statement that it was okay if the stick was no bigger around that his thumb. This is why the phrase is now considered offensive.
@@souporcoolguy Except it is a lot easier to guess at the shorter distance that is perpendicular to your line of site. Average diameter of a tree in your area, width of a stop sign or highway sign, etc. could be used as a reference. I'm going to have to give this a try. (And confirm with my range finder rather than pacing it!).
For measuring how much time before sundown, hold your arm out bend your hand at the fingers palm toward you, count the fingers at the horizon to the levels of the sun ,each finger is about 15 minutes
Very interesting observation. Where did you learn that?
@@pedroi9008 I personally got the advice from Bear Grills in his Man vs. Wild series. Later on I learned it again in the military.
Big Fan
@@snowdropfox5754 Thank you.
It seems to be a little less than 15 minutes. If I look at the top of my thumb to the bottom of my hand, the whole hand is about an hour. My arms are long, though.
presentation and personality a perfect mAtch, simple, straightforward , practical and a lot of common sense, good job.
Nice one! I guess it depends on each person's arm's reach and their eye separation. One can easily fix this by doing some tests to calibrate the multiplying factor.
First time learning this. Thank you for the lesson. Thumbs up for you. 😉👍
Location is beautiful. Thanks for sharing the technique.
Very cool. The difference between the two readings in yards/meters, then times 10 is the appx. distance.
I just want to know how you teleported at 0:05.
That some Hollywood special effects 😁
All he did was close his left eye.
😂
What a great video! I have never heard of this measuring skill, thank you SO MUCH for sharing it. It's simple and easy to understand.
Thanks
Interesting. I've seen this method used for estimating the height of objects, trees etc.
As a Canadian this would have been really handy before legalization for us old gorilla gardeners! Nice tip, thanks for sharing.
Nice! Hope your still gardening for personal enjoyment if allowed 👍.
I finally am able to legally grow for medical. Very happy about it! Though I can't do quantity still, I've definitely increase quality!
I took ur technique and record ur music for my ringtone while walking, thanks dude I appreciated it..
your, NOT ur
@ thanks 🙏 😊
How did you get the 2 meters from your stick/thumb position A and B?
I think he means, you need to estimate the distance between the tree and spot on the ground to the right of the tree that your thumb is now covering.
I'll give this a try, but you're still having to guess/estimate the difference in distance between left & right eye view. The farther the object the more room for error there will be. I've found with enough practice I'm able to reckon distance to an object within a couple hundred meters fairly well. Beyond that it doesn't really matter in most situations.
You could double check it with this method
The critical one is to estimate the distance/shift between left and right eyes view.
I had completely forgotten this technique from scouts. Thanks mate!
💪
Derived from the Pythagorean Theorem, the distance formula is used to find the distance between two points in a plane. The Pythagorean Theorem is based on a right triangle where a and b are the lengths of the legs adjacent to the right angle, and c is the length of the hypotenuse.
Yes , thats the Math behinde it . I would never be able to express myself in english about Pythagoren so i tried it in my simple English . Thanks for this Comment 🍺
That theorem has been documented to have been used long before Pythagoras, and given that math & science is derived from our observations of the natural world, I was gonna suggest this as the possible basis for that particular aspect of learning.
That's hardly worth arguing over though, especially here, so I'm just here to note that the pythagorean theorem came to my mind as well👍
I wish I was high on potenuse
If you also have an elevation map, you can use nearby mountain peaks, to roughly estimate how many days it will take to travel that distance.
*Take note, if you are using a trail, or bushwhacking, those times of travel will be greatly different. But if you're out there with a map, and walking to the nearest mountain peak, you probably already know this.
>If you are new to backcountry travel, and deciding on what to put in your pack, or what to leave behind, a compass, and a map of your surroundings are a few things that are certainly worth the weight to carry.
Oh I hadn't thought of that. Why didnt we just use the map Cletus. We would have known how far it was.
@darrick steele While I agree, I think it’s important to note, for the average person, a map and a compass are of very little use if you don’t know anything about orienteering. I’d say most people’s “knowledge” is based off television, and they think that just having a compass and knowing where North is all there is to it.
@@darwinsaye For sure, people who are going into the backcountry, should first understand the basics, but even just knowing that you're not walking in a circle, all day, can be better than no compass at all. If a person does have an elevation map, they probably already know the basics. But I'd rather see someone who doesn't know how to read a map, at least have that compass. If they choose to keep walking north (although where I'm from that's probably the worst direction) at least they are not backtracking or wasting miles. I would also think, that if a person didn't know anything at all, about these things, if they went out and got a compass, at least some of those new compass owners would look into learning the basics. If they don't, then hey, at least we tried.
Love you being in the moment. Keep up hiking, brother. You are a good person.
It might be a little easier to estimate a smaller distance in the horizon, perpendicular to your line of sight, than a longer distance between you and an object, but it all still rests on your estimate. If you are good at estimating one, you'll be good as well at estimating the other. I've never felt I needed such tricks to estimate the distance of an object and I doubt it is going to improve anyone's estimates. It's hard to imagine a situation where this can help, but it is curious nonetheless.
a good compass and terrain map always work.
@@rjbradlow , I guess you are thinking in terms of military precision, maybe for artillery fire. I've never been in the military. As a mountaineer or other outdoors person, one would never need such precision.
Well, there was a bit of math, but even the mathematically impared (like myself) can figure this one out. Very nice... i'm gonna learn this one to amaze my friends. Who knows, could be a party trick that saves my life one day.
First, thanks for teaching me this. I know that it's simple for people to understand, but everyone is built different. And I'm built dumb. Secondly, I am so happy to finally find a video recommended to me that is not AI garbage.
How do you know that your thumb appearing to move that much is 2 meters? Do you have to test it out on some known distances, kind of like figuring out how long your paces are? If you hold your thumb out arm's length and look through each eye, your thumb will always seem to move the same amount. If you're looking at a mountain peak in the distance, what would that tell you about the distance of the mountain peak? I think I must have missed something ...
I had the same question. Where does the 2 meters come from?
Hey , you have to guess
The more you try the better you get with it .
Yes , It gets a little trickyer in the long Distance . There are some Helpfull tricks that you can use for guesssing in long and short Distances and i might make another Video to it because im a bad writer .
@@yyyalbert Oh! OK. You are guessing the tree width (actually, half width) is two meters. So, it is better to target a known object, I suppose. Thanks.
Try to imagined something you know the size of , your car for example .. in my case of 2 meters
I imagined my friend who is allmost 2 meters high , beside the Tree like he would be chilling on the Beach .
I know him for years , i saw him from diffrent Distances .
So guessing was easier for me
Hope it helps
@@yyyalbert Thanks, that makes sense.
This is what they used to measure the distance to stars before other methods were developed but instead of using the distance between your eyes for the parallax they used opposite sides of the sun.
Thats Interesting , Thanks
We still use this method to get distances. It is one of the most accurate methods for close objects. Look up the amazing precision of Gaia.
@@bermchasin Thanks, just curious... is it still used more than red-shift?
@@rhymereason3449 depends on the distance. You can't use redshift for close objects and you can't use parallax for far objects. Astronomers often call it a "distance ladder" for that reason. The methods build upon one another
The Sun and the Moon, from our perspective move their width in the sky every hour. That's why an hour is an hour. Egyptians ya know....
Anyhow that works out to be 15degrees at an Equinox. 15*12=180 plus night 180. Earth time is not metric nor is classic geometry or astronomy. Metric not being naturally observed, but contrived.
The rule of thumb was a Greek and Roman method of distance guessing by trig (probably earlier too). The shift is 4" per thumb width...aka your 10cm, three of those make a foot. Yes the multiplier for most of us is about 7.
That's interesting and informative. Very useful and simple and practical.
Love it
That’s great video man that most useful thing in my life
Thanks 💪🍺
The problem is, you aren't going to use it when walking towards a tree. You're going to use it when walking towards that mountain and you can guess the distance to the mountain just about as easy as you can guess the distance between two points on it.
exactly. you can not really measure one distance by guessing another.
Its perfect man, no tools no worries! The thumb rules...😊👍
Just in case you dont have thumb 😂
Instructions unclear. Now I'm facing charges for harassment for giving people the thumbs up and winking.
Thanks for the tip good to practice, and find correct distance , it forces you to walk more.
For a more accurate measurement, instead of multiplying it by ten, multiply it by length of your arm divided by the distance between your pupils
How to measure the arm? Starting from chest when held straight in front? And ending at crease of wrist or to the end of the fingers. Thanks.
@@shevetlevi2821 I think where your thumb is if you're using your thumb as reference.
@@deerpic Okay, thanks.
Distance from your eye to your thumb
@@tomstevelt9641 Thanks Tom. Easy measurement.
"NO MATH NEEDED" 5 minutes later "multiply by ten" nah too much work 😂.
Yes its easy ik.
As an archer, this is quite useful.
💪
If you don't have a thumb, how can you hold the stick? lol
Didnt think about that 😁
@@yyyalbert
✊😂
With your teeth, lips, eyelids or nostrils
Between your fingers…in your fisted palm…other hand etc etc It’s not rocket science
but you said no math needed
Thanx brother! From Georgia, 🇺🇸 USA ❤
Hello to Georgia .Do i say you welcome or your welcome ? I dont know how its spelled wright .you welcome 🍺
It's you're (you are)😉
Love that bench! Thanks for the quick tutorial on this, I never knew about this! Very useful info! Thanks for the vid!