Another trick I’ve learned is you can tell how much sunlight is left by holding your fingers sideways and every finger from the horizon to the sun is fifteen minutes it works really good like three fingers is 45 minutes till sunset. As a builder it’s been useful.
I've actually tried this a bunch of times in lots of different countries. 15 mins seems about twice as long as reality to me, it's somewhere around 5-10 mins but seems to vary on latitude and time of year.
I used to be so good at this that I could wow my coworkers by getting the time right down to within 5 minutes. Since I stopped landscaping, I haven't used it much. It helps out a lot if you know around what time the sun sets in your area, then you can approximate the time of day very accurately. Another trick is to see how far the sun is away from directly overhead of you (which would be 12pm), count how many fingers it is, then you have a basis to approximate when it rose and when it will set
Thanks for sharing. I fly a drone and for legal flying you need to be able to estimate 50m away from people and 150m for buildings. I’m terrible at estimating distances. I’m going to give this a go and pace it out.
Pretty cool! You're basically using your eyes as a horizontal stadimeter. Submarines in WW2 often used a similar method to judge distance to ships, albeit much more formulaic and precise. A prism in the periscope rotates and creates two separate images, and then the distance from waterline to highest mast on the ship is compared to the arc length covered by distance between the two images (like the two horizontal points here) and used to estimate distance to the ship for calculating a firing solution for the torpedoes.
To clarify: the ship needs to be identified first for the method to work, so the mast height is taken from a book, so it has a bit added accuracy compared to the method in this video.
An object of known size in the distance could potentially help. For example, if there's a car where you're looking at, you could say 4-5 car lengths, should be around 20-25 meters, since a sedan is like 4.5 - 5 meters long typically.
@@Deniz1923 In the mountains, you'd not be able to spot a car at the relevant distances. It is too small. In my country, at least. I can see a few scenarios where this can be useful, but otherwise OP is correct. Also at shorter distances there's no point, as you can just walk there in a few seconds or a couple of minutes.
When I went through USAF (pilots) training, survival classes (if shot down) back in the late 1960's we were taught this. You might not have a compass or anything but your pistol on you. I'd completely forgotten about this trick till I saw your video and thought to watch. It does work. Capt ret USAF 20th SOS, 27th Spl Ops Wing, Nam 1970 -73.
Well it works! I stood in our hallway, pointed my thumb to the kitchen, and my thumb moved exactly the width of a kitchen cabinet. The cabinet is a standard 60cm so this meant I was about 6 meters away. I got my tape measure out and it was 6.3 metres, so not bad for my first attempt!
@I33nc3 No we are used to compensating and averaging in waves. Try using a bearing telescope in waves. Thumb is quick n dirty approximate. Very useful.
Another great estimate of something I have is this ; I worked in the heating and cooling business for a couple of years, I worked with my boss and he asked me how much 1/2", rolled up, copper pipe we had left. We had 2 rolls of it left, 1 roll being much longer. I walked to the truck and thought 🤔🤔🤔🤔 I don't want to unroll it all out, how will I do this... It's simple, I came up with this by myself, and nobody taught me. I took the roll in my hand and counted the "loops"... It was 15. I then measured the diameter (not the id and not the od. The middle d), let's say it was 29 inches. 15 x 29 x pi(3.14) = 1366 inches or 114 feet. No unrolling needed. I do this with coils of wire too or extension cords. I'm usually within 3 inches!
Hi Wayne I have heard of the saying before, but not in navigating. Very useful rule of thumb to know. Phil You are very good and knowledgeable, I bet your courses are superb
I'll tell you why you did that at the end; It was a sly trick to get me to like the video. A subliminal message to klick the thumbs up. AND IT F***ING WORKED!! Nice video man! Thanks for the tip ^^
I have done some math with the triangle formed by the eyes and the thumb. If the distance between the two points on the landscape is approximately 90 meters, your distance is about 1 km. If it is approximately 450 meters your distance is about 5 km. If the distance between the two points is roughly 2.5 km, your distance is around 30 km and so on. So yes there is a proportional correlation between the distance of the two points and your distance to the points. By multiplying the distance of the points by ten you get a rough 10% margin of error, you can multiply by 11 and this should give you a more precise guess, but as already said this is always a rule of thumb because you have to guess the distance of the two points but in theory it works pretty fine.
Very useful! He reminds me of Vault Boy, with the whole rule of thumb also (apparently) being used to measure distance of Nuclear blasts, and the blue t-shirt with the yellow collar just sold it. Still, extremely simple to follow and understand, thank you sir!
This is taking advantage of a property known as "parallax". So the perceived distance between the object when viewed by either eye is based on the distance between your eyes (the angle, relative to the object), which is basically a known distance. So with that, you can get a rough idea of how far things are away by taking advantage of a part of your physiognomy.
Thanks, I just discovered your channel and subbed. I have navigated wilderness since the 1960s. I have been lost only once because I left my compass in camp because after supper I was just going into the woods maybe 100 yards and didn't think I needed it but got turned around and came out about a mile away. I didn't even know how lost I was until I came out . I got scolded by my uncle for not having my compass with me. Everything I my uncle taught me about being lost came true, panic, denying that I was lost, heart rate increased, breathing , sweating and not thinking clear. Only when I sat and calmed down did my wits return and I found my way out. I NEVER go into the woods without a compass. I do use GPS now but still carry maps and compass and have needed them when GPS failed.
it would be interesting to also measure how correct your horizontal estimation was and compare with the measured "vertical" distance. if your estimation of 9-10m is wrong and is actually about 8.6 m, then the rule of thumb is almost exact.
I agree with you. I should have measured the distance between the tree and track going in to the forest. I only start making videos a few months ago, so I'll get better at it - hopefully 😊
So the distance between your eyes is about 3 inches and the distance between your eyes and your thumb is about 30 inches so this defines the angle and by the rule of similar triangles the ratio will be the same for the far triangle. For me, however, my arms are apparently shorter and the ratio is about 8.5. Oh, now I see he explained this above.
At measuring long distances, you are substituting the guesswork of measuring straight line distance for horizontal (left to right) distance using this method.
This works because of similar triangles: the triangle between your two eyes and your thumb is a similar triangle to your thumb and the two points you're trying to estimate the distance to. For me, the distance between my eyes was about 2.5" and the eye to thumb distance was about 26.5", so the exact formula for me would be (distance to object) = (distance I estimate between thumb images) * (26.5"/2.5") = distance * 10.6 Really amazing and handy (no pun intended) that it's so close to ten! Makes the math much easier, having our bodies built this way.
Okay. I'm an apprentice carpenter. The Moment I understood the task I did it my Ps5 is mounted on the wall at a certain distance from my TV. Had an eye of a carpenter moment and said 200 mil. Got the tape out and from my eyes to exactly where I was looking was exactly 2 metres.
Thanks for emphasizing it is an estimate, and making people who will never have common sense unable to claim "bUt i sAW tHIs vIdEO" in their fallacious or outright inverted "reasoning". I've studied a master in outdoor stuff (non-translateable) and hiked since before I could walk (and started skiing before I was 3), yet this is useful - despite being _VERY_ aware you should _NEVER_ go anywhere remote without a map and compass - *EVEN* if you have a GPS.
Everyone has a different size body. So take the distance from your eyes to your extended thumb and divide by the distance between your right and left eyes. This gives the exact ratio. This can be hard to measure so an alternative method is to put a meter stick on the ground and then distance yourself until your thumb points to each end of the meter stick when using alternative eyes. Now measure how far away you are from the meter stick and you have your ratio. This will vary depending on the person but once measured, is very accurate. Also note that you should just use the centre of you thumb for aligning things as this prevents the width of your thumb from becoming a factor. And tilt your head (if required) so that your thumb stays parallel to the distance you are trying to measure when switching between eyes.
But it's the ratio of the distance between your eyes and the length of your arm that's important. The proportions of the human body are pretty similar for most people. This is why it works so well (most of the time)
Wow it actually works. I stood back until the distance was 2 bricks from one eye to the next, which is 48cm. I measured how far back I stood and it was 5m. Not bad...
Hmmm..ok,but….nobody cares about 100m…the usefulness is more applicable to like Km or miles….and that is where a problem arises. You will have to estimate the horizontal distance between two points which will be too greatly separated to guess easily, possibly more than half a mile apart. I am not rubbishing the principle, but you’ll need that horizontal guesstimation method to make it work for practical mid to far distance Rule of Thumb. Well presented video…Thank you.
Correct - but often you are able to spot 'known' dimensions - say cars, buildings, height of trees, width of road etc to assist you to estimate the gap.
@@varmepumper3940 That's the only time it would really work at all. A mountain range in the distance wouldn't be helpful if you have no sense of the actual scale of the mountain. Maybe if you have a mountain range that you knew was X miles wide, but if you're having to use this, you're probably somewhere you wouldn't know that information. It would actually be more useful for knowing how far you've left a place. Like for example, if you were by a waterfall you figured was about 20ft across, then walked away from it and looked back. You could then use that as a reference to say how far away you've gotten from it. But I don't know how that would really be useful to anyone looking to navigate distances with it, because eventually that reference point will lose line of sight. You'd essentially have to stop and build a reference multiple times. So when you walked away from that waterfall and measured how far you went, you'd find something else nearby where you stopped and figure its width, and do the same thing again from far, and adding estimations together. Then you will know how far you've went. It would actually make more sense to use this method in conjunction with a map that did have distances written on it, if you knew where you were and how far you've travelled, you could estimate how far you've gone on the map. The real issue with distances though, even knowing scales of things, is topography. With enough hills and elevation changes in the land, the actual distance you need to walk could be double. So you'd have to get a feel for it, with flat land being the baseline measurement, and them knowing hilly areas would be much more than the base guesstimate.
You can make this more accurate if you have some measurements taken. Take the distance from your outstretched thumb to your eyeballs and divide it by the distance between your eyes. So if your thumb is 50cm from your eyes, and your eyes are 5cm apart, the add a zero method will work as well as your ability to estimate that distance. If you have long arms or narrow eyes, that might be an underestimate. But those are the measurements to check if you want to eliminate as much error as possible.
Your videos are really great very informative and you're a very nice guy I've been subscribed to you for a while now few months since I found your videos but they're really great and this is Easter Sunday and I hope you have a happy holiday
yep, though for me it is 7 times, so sin(t)=1/7, and since is a small angle sin(t)~t, so x_far=x_sideways/sin(1/7)=7*x_sideways. though 10 is easier and its an estimation anyway
Ovens dont always have predictable temperatures, you may not have a clock or thermometer, or your meat might be too cold, so go by yummy smell then check it, it shouldnt be rubbery when you poke it and if it is in a pan the juices should be clear. Bread is another one you go by smell first, check the colour, then knock it and it should sound more like a knock not a thud. Cakes by smell, then golden, then poke it with a thin knife and it will come out clean when it is baked. Tortillas will slip around on the comal when they are ready to be flipped, if they stick you need to wait.
Something like you postulate is precisely what we used to use bow hunting. Well for heavens sakes. I just went to google looking for an example of 'old fashioned mechanical bow hunting range finder' and there are none. I guess everybody tossed theirs when the new fangled lasers came out.
00:47 I am a beginner in cartography and orienting myself in the terrain without tools. So here's a question: Is it 20 minutes per pound plus the 20 minutes (as in the same example with kilos), or without the "plus"? Thanks a lot in advance. Best regards, signed: Me.
I think you’ve missed the point of the video. I’m a chef and I’ve stuck my thumb at all the chickens in my kitchen and I’ve been able to work out that they’re around half a mile away from me, which is great, because now I’ve got a lot more space in the kitchen. The downside is I have to walk quite far to make any food.
20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes. In this instance metric measures confuse things. This (kitchen) rule of thumb is also used for brewing tea - 1 teaspoon per person and one for the pot. Not that many people use loose tea these days, although I guess it would also work with tea bags.
@@paulreeves8251 Thanks! I will make sure t try it out. The 1 tea bag / tea spoon per person plus 1 for the pot was always very confusing indeed. Plus, the package instructions on Lipton tea are different in different language options (you can see the numbers for minutes to brew differ from language to language). So testing every rule of thumb on your own, to train your inner measuring system, is a must. As for the distance measuring example - if you know the horizontal distance between two objects, you can use this rule with very good results. But, if it all is new to you, you will need quite a lot of practice to get a feel for the real distance between objects on the horizon. Same goes for cooking and loose tea brewing, where practice makes cooks / tea masters able to measure ingredients and steeping times by the eye.
Cool , reminds me of my vavo who was in ww2 n had nifty tricks like he used his watch n the sun to find true north, so, w, e , to get back to camp wen he got lost in the woods getting branchez for firewood , im glad i subbed
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.
Cool. Just tried with a clock across the room I estimated 30cms so 3 meters away. I had both eyes open and focused on the target so I could see both instances of my thumb. I guess it's harder over larger distances.
is your thumb centered, like by your nose, or is it off to one side? So we are using the angle between your eyes and the height of your thumb to guestimate by rough triangulation.
Got it, raise your thumb and close one eye then open it and close the other eye, estimate the distance between them and add zero, then take a tape measure and measure the distance. Just kidding😅, thanks for the video You cant have a youtube video without a troll in the comments section now can you. Apreciate it.
Pace it out, then you know, plus you had something to occupy your mind while you walked or in my case ran. Failing that, use your GPS watch. The problem with these quaint methods is that we can always rationalise that they were reasonable as nobody goes along afterwards and checks.
@@TheMapReadingCompany Right, the video shows the tape upside down, which means the tape actually says "36m 90". The "36m" means 36 meters, but what does "90" mean? 90 units of what? It's not feet, yards, or metric. 🤔
From the measuring tape at 3:17, *36* meters equals *90* "mystery units", therefore one "mystery unit" equals 400 millimeters or 15.74803 inches. Still no idea what it is. Maybe it's the word "go" instead of the number 90? 🙂
Seems like people with wide-set eyes and narrow-set eyes would get different readings, no? Still, you could calibrate it for your own body. The tricky part is knowing how far apart those two thumb points are.
Parallax, the first metod of measuring distances to the stars, ence "parsec", parallax of second of a degree, an old unit of measure used to measure distances in the Universe. Was applied by measuring the angle in six months time interval to obtain a diferent point of view of 2 AU, 300 000 00 Km. Of course they did not used the thumb :)
i just took a box of my ritalin medication on a day i was ironically off my meds, and did some trigonometry with Tangent and arctangent, and made 5 degree increments along the far edge of the box. basically i use the rectangular thin box like binoculars, but with the left or right edge (depending on which eye is open) zeroed in or level to my vision to mark 0 degrees. then the dots spread horizontally, say to my right, in 5 degree intervals. if i can see a desired point through a hole, then i know the angle it is right or left (i guess up and down works too, but then you might need to account for having flat ground, so i do everything horizontally instead of vertically, so the ground doesnt matter, just that i look exactly at the center of a target object. anyway, theres 5 layers, up to down on this side, so i actually have every degree, just they are arranged modulo 5...5 mod x has its own layer, so everything can fit neatly on that side. anyway, so long as i know the width between my 0 and center of my target or its distance, i then can know the one i dont know or dont know how to approximate. opp/tan x or adj*tan x, so my distance times tan x or approx the distance center to zero divided by the angle (aka tan angle) and yeah. if you dont like guessing that much, then you could walk perpendicular to the 0 and target and take a second measurement. then use the difference in degree and your sure knowledge of how far you walked to get a more precise measurement. just use a mechanical pencil to poke small holes in your box,
Well for relatively nearby objects this method is almost exact because it is easier to estimate the distance between the finger. But I don't think it's very accurate for far away objects. Anyways it rule of thumb as you said so it gives an approximation.
tried this right after finishing the video with a 6 inch wide object and my thumb crossed the width of it, turns out my thumb was exactly 60 inches away from it. only part that makes things difficult is my left eye is about half an inch above my right so long distance is gonna take even more guess work. but yea, that method has a use
Rrr, thats what those hikers are doing along side the road they're measuring the distance between them ,starting point ,closing eye, then ,albeit that's it. I'll wave passing.
I like this but if i was good at judging the horizontal distance i would go straight to judging how far away the campsite is 🤪❤️. A good tip is using an analogue watch as a compass as long as you can see the sun. 👍❤️🇬🇧
You can use objects to gauge the distance between the two points - wall height, trees, gates, etc. It is much easier to judge shorter distances than long ones. I agree about using the sun to get the direction - you can also use the stars, the moon, etc. Here is a video I made about this: th-cam.com/video/M3Mnp5CyilA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SzS9Nlf1i3jV-YjX
Faced my door and tried this, later measured to roughly ~1.5dm, which lines up with my estimation of ~1,5m from me to the door. I'll definitely try to remember this trick the next time I'm out and about.
The thumb is pretty wide. Do you measure from the middle of thumb 1 to to middle of thumb 2, the inside of thumb 1 to the inside thumb 2, or the outside of thumb 1 to the outside of thumb 2?
A much longer arm (than yours) will move the thumb further from the eye, which in turn will reduce the gap between the 2 points (left eye and right eye). Then adding a zero (multiply by 10) will lead to a much shorter distance. A much shorter arm brings the thumb closer to the eyes, which increases the gap between the 2 points, and so adding a zero leads to a mcuh longer distance. To be "sure" of an accurate formula, each person would need to calibrate their own scale using a known distance. Applying the known distance to the gap between the left eye and right eye points the person would then be able to work out what they mutiply the gap by to get the distance.
@@Ronin-ke5wmthere is no reason an estimate shouldn't be made as accurately as possible. If it complicated the estimation process, sure. But this is just a one-time calibration, and doing that once makes a lot of sense if it improves your estimate by, say, 20%
Another trick I’ve learned is you can tell how much sunlight is left by holding your fingers sideways and every finger from the horizon to the sun is fifteen minutes it works really good like three fingers is 45 minutes till sunset. As a builder it’s been useful.
I like that idea, I'll give that a try - IF it ever stops raining
I've actually tried this a bunch of times in lots of different countries. 15 mins seems about twice as long as reality to me, it's somewhere around 5-10 mins but seems to vary on latitude and time of year.
I like the idea of estimating by number of fingers, but this will also vary person-to-person. How long is their arm, and how fat are their fingers?
@@poyndextr that's one of the reasons why it's only an estimate 😄
I used to be so good at this that I could wow my coworkers by getting the time right down to within 5 minutes. Since I stopped landscaping, I haven't used it much. It helps out a lot if you know around what time the sun sets in your area, then you can approximate the time of day very accurately. Another trick is to see how far the sun is away from directly overhead of you (which would be 12pm), count how many fingers it is, then you have a basis to approximate when it rose and when it will set
I was fine, right up until I closed my other eye and everything went dark... ;)
Tunnel vision maybe ?
Think about it... @@joeys5429
Look behind you.
😂
So sorry to hear you only have one eye
Thanks for sharing. I fly a drone and for legal flying you need to be able to estimate 50m away from people and 150m for buildings. I’m terrible at estimating distances. I’m going to give this a go and pace it out.
The illegal flying is much more fun.
Or just be good at judging distances!
@@danthemansmail For real
JUST HAVE A GET AWAY DRIVER AND KEEP GOING DOWN THE ROAD ... IF STOPED THEM THEM THE DAMN DRONE IS FOLLOWING YOU !!
be careful where your drone's going while you're squinting at your thumb though 😂
Pretty cool! You're basically using your eyes as a horizontal stadimeter. Submarines in WW2 often used a similar method to judge distance to ships, albeit much more formulaic and precise. A prism in the periscope rotates and creates two separate images, and then the distance from waterline to highest mast on the ship is compared to the arc length covered by distance between the two images (like the two horizontal points here) and used to estimate distance to the ship for calculating a firing solution for the torpedoes.
To clarify: the ship needs to be identified first for the method to work, so the mast height is taken from a book, so it has a bit added accuracy compared to the method in this video.
I sort of recall that it was something like 2 miles for every foot in height at sea?
Duuude. Thanks for sharing that. Neat stuff :)
wearing glasses is a handy tool.small increments in the bifocal glass
I feel like for long distances, you'll have a very difficult time gauging how far the two reference points are that you're looking at
Well with practice you'll get way better to the point you'll be able to tell after awhile.
An object of known size in the distance could potentially help. For example, if there's a car where you're looking at, you could say 4-5 car lengths, should be around 20-25 meters, since a sedan is like 4.5 - 5 meters long typically.
That's not a "feeling", that is rationalism...
@@Deniz1923 In the mountains, you'd not be able to spot a car at the relevant distances. It is too small. In my country, at least. I can see a few scenarios where this can be useful, but otherwise OP is correct. Also at shorter distances there's no point, as you can just walk there in a few seconds or a couple of minutes.
@@MrDxfusionWith practice you can just tell the distance. No need for rule of thumb.
When I went through USAF (pilots) training, survival classes (if shot down) back in the late 1960's we were taught this. You might not have a compass or anything but your pistol on you. I'd completely forgotten about this trick till I saw your video and thought to watch. It does work. Capt ret USAF 20th SOS, 27th Spl Ops Wing, Nam 1970 -73.
thankyou for your service sir.
I’m going through SERE at the end of this month and am a little bit nervous!
I know it’s amazing training but still… Not looking forward to “Resist.”
I was in Vietnam during that time frame (First Air Cav). You may have saved my behind. Thank you for your service!
How do you measure distances of 5km or more?
Always good to see one of the warriors of the old world around
Well it works! I stood in our hallway, pointed my thumb to the kitchen, and my thumb moved exactly the width of a kitchen cabinet. The cabinet is a standard 60cm so this meant I was about 6 meters away. I got my tape measure out and it was 6.3 metres, so not bad for my first attempt!
Easiest explanation of rule of thumb I've seen on TH-cam.Thanks
That's so cool! When anchoring my sailboat, it's so hard to estimate the distance to other boats or obstacles. This will be a big help... Thank you.
@I33nc3 No we are used to compensating and averaging in waves. Try using a bearing telescope in waves. Thumb is quick n dirty approximate. Very useful.
Another great estimate of something I have is this ;
I worked in the heating and cooling business for a couple of years, I worked with my boss and he asked me how much 1/2", rolled up, copper pipe we had left. We had 2 rolls of it left, 1 roll being much longer. I walked to the truck and thought 🤔🤔🤔🤔
I don't want to unroll it all out, how will I do this...
It's simple, I came up with this by myself, and nobody taught me.
I took the roll in my hand and counted the "loops"... It was 15.
I then measured the diameter (not the id and not the od. The middle d), let's say it was 29 inches.
15 x 29 x pi(3.14) = 1366 inches or 114 feet.
No unrolling needed.
I do this with coils of wire too or extension cords. I'm usually within 3 inches!
This is so simple and good!
Amazing video and straight to the point
I give it a thumbs up! It is valid, the ratio is 10:1 - the thumb distance to the eyes ~55cm (10) and the distance between eyes is ~5,5cm (1).
Did not know the chicken rule.
Did not know the distance method.
Thanks for both.
love such tricks which were a basis for ages while hunting, building etc. great vid!
Hi Wayne
I have heard of the saying before, but not in navigating. Very useful rule of thumb to know.
Phil
You are very good and knowledgeable, I bet your courses are superb
Phils tend to be awesome.
I just tried this and tested it. It actually works! Pretty much on the money. New skill added.
I'll tell you why you did that at the end; It was a sly trick to get me to like the video. A subliminal message to klick the thumbs up. AND IT F***ING WORKED!!
Nice video man! Thanks for the tip ^^
That’s great. Thanks. I’ll try it on the golf course to save the faff of getting out the laser rangefinder. Cheers.
I tried this. It worked! THANKS!! (California, USA)
I have done some math with the triangle formed by the eyes and the thumb.
If the distance between the two points on the landscape is approximately 90 meters, your distance is about 1 km.
If it is approximately 450 meters your distance is about 5 km.
If the distance between the two points is roughly 2.5 km, your distance is around 30 km and so on.
So yes there is a proportional correlation between the distance of the two points and your distance to the points. By multiplying the distance of the points by ten you get a rough 10% margin of error, you can multiply by 11 and this should give you a more precise guess, but as already said this is always a rule of thumb because you have to guess the distance of the two points but in theory it works pretty fine.
Very useful! He reminds me of Vault Boy, with the whole rule of thumb also (apparently) being used to measure distance of Nuclear blasts, and the blue t-shirt with the yellow collar just sold it.
Still, extremely simple to follow and understand, thank you sir!
Great tip with explanation. Thank you for all your hard work, measuring the distance for us…
This is taking advantage of a property known as "parallax". So the perceived distance between the object when viewed by either eye is based on the distance between your eyes (the angle, relative to the object), which is basically a known distance. So with that, you can get a rough idea of how far things are away by taking advantage of a part of your physiognomy.
Brilliant! And bloody entertaining. Thank you.
Thanks, I just discovered your channel and subbed.
I have navigated wilderness since the 1960s. I have been lost only once because I left my compass in camp because after supper I was just going into the woods maybe 100 yards and didn't think I needed it but got turned around and came out about a mile away. I didn't even know how lost I was until I came out . I got scolded by my uncle for not having my compass with me. Everything I my uncle taught me about being lost came true, panic, denying that I was lost, heart rate increased, breathing , sweating and not thinking clear. Only when I sat and calmed down did my wits return and I found my way out. I NEVER go into the woods without a compass.
I do use GPS now but still carry maps and compass and have needed them when GPS failed.
it would be interesting to also measure how correct your horizontal estimation was and compare with the measured "vertical" distance. if your estimation of 9-10m is wrong and is actually about 8.6 m, then the rule of thumb is almost exact.
I agree with you. I should have measured the distance between the tree and track going in to the forest.
I only start making videos a few months ago, so I'll get better at it - hopefully 😊
So the distance between your eyes is about 3 inches and the distance between your eyes and your thumb is about 30 inches so this defines the angle and by the rule of similar triangles the ratio will be the same for the far triangle. For me, however, my arms are apparently shorter and the ratio is about 8.5. Oh, now I see he explained this above.
Average interpupillary distance is 63mm not 75, I’m an optometrist btw.
@@davidbridgman6892 fascinatingly, it doesn't change once youre an adult. You might gain/ lose fat in the face, but it stays the same
From time to time someone posts something truly interesting...this is one of those times. Thanks for sharing sir
At measuring long distances, you are substituting the guesswork of measuring straight line distance for horizontal (left to right) distance using this method.
This works because of similar triangles: the triangle between your two eyes and your thumb is a similar triangle to your thumb and the two points you're trying to estimate the distance to. For me, the distance between my eyes was about 2.5" and the eye to thumb distance was about 26.5", so the exact formula for me would be (distance to object) = (distance I estimate between thumb images) * (26.5"/2.5") = distance * 10.6
Really amazing and handy (no pun intended) that it's so close to ten! Makes the math much easier, having our bodies built this way.
Okay. I'm an apprentice carpenter. The Moment I understood the task I did it my Ps5 is mounted on the wall at a certain distance from my TV. Had an eye of a carpenter moment and said 200 mil. Got the tape out and from my eyes to exactly where I was looking was exactly 2 metres.
The thumbs up at the end was a perfect natural closer to this video. For someone who seems to be uncomfortable on camera he done good
Thanks for emphasizing it is an estimate, and making people who will never have common sense unable to claim "bUt i sAW tHIs vIdEO" in their fallacious or outright inverted "reasoning".
I've studied a master in outdoor stuff (non-translateable) and hiked since before I could walk (and started skiing before I was 3), yet this is useful - despite being _VERY_ aware you should _NEVER_ go anywhere remote without a map and compass - *EVEN* if you have a GPS.
Everyone has a different size body. So take the distance from your eyes to your extended thumb and divide by the distance between your right and left eyes. This gives the exact ratio.
This can be hard to measure so an alternative method is to put a meter stick on the ground and then distance yourself until your thumb points to each end of the meter stick when using alternative eyes. Now measure how far away you are from the meter stick and you have your ratio. This will vary depending on the person but once measured, is very accurate.
Also note that you should just use the centre of you thumb for aligning things as this prevents the width of your thumb from becoming a factor. And tilt your head (if required) so that your thumb stays parallel to the distance you are trying to measure when switching between eyes.
But it's the ratio of the distance between your eyes and the length of your arm that's important. The proportions of the human body are pretty similar for most people. This is why it works so well (most of the time)
I believe that your are somewhat over thinking the "rule of thumb" concept.
JESUS H. CHRIST. The whole fucking point was to have a way to make a simple estimation that is approximately correct.
If you want to measure your thumb alignment you could also just use 10 cm instead of a 1 meter stick
You could also always use the outer part or inner part of your thumb as the markingpoint. That makes it even more accurate
Wow it actually works.
I stood back until the distance was 2 bricks from one eye to the next, which is 48cm. I measured how far back I stood and it was 5m. Not bad...
Modest cheerful person, kinda made me feel a bit light. Much love map guy
Hmmm..ok,but….nobody cares about 100m…the usefulness is more applicable to like Km or miles….and that is where a problem arises. You will have to estimate the horizontal distance between two points which will be too greatly separated to guess easily, possibly more than half a mile apart. I am not rubbishing the principle, but you’ll need that horizontal guesstimation method to make it work for practical mid to far distance Rule of Thumb. Well presented video…Thank you.
So you are educated and work in an office, in a city ? You are city people mentality.
Correct - but often you are able to spot 'known' dimensions - say cars, buildings, height of trees, width of road etc to assist you to estimate the gap.
@@varmepumper3940 That's the only time it would really work at all. A mountain range in the distance wouldn't be helpful if you have no sense of the actual scale of the mountain. Maybe if you have a mountain range that you knew was X miles wide, but if you're having to use this, you're probably somewhere you wouldn't know that information. It would actually be more useful for knowing how far you've left a place. Like for example, if you were by a waterfall you figured was about 20ft across, then walked away from it and looked back.
You could then use that as a reference to say how far away you've gotten from it. But I don't know how that would really be useful to anyone looking to navigate distances with it, because eventually that reference point will lose line of sight. You'd essentially have to stop and build a reference multiple times. So when you walked away from that waterfall and measured how far you went, you'd find something else nearby where you stopped and figure its width, and do the same thing again from far, and adding estimations together. Then you will know how far you've went. It would actually make more sense to use this method in conjunction with a map that did have distances written on it, if you knew where you were and how far you've travelled, you could estimate how far you've gone on the map.
The real issue with distances though, even knowing scales of things, is topography. With enough hills and elevation changes in the land, the actual distance you need to walk could be double. So you'd have to get a feel for it, with flat land being the baseline measurement, and them knowing hilly areas would be much more than the base guesstimate.
Say eye and spell map and say ness again repeat that😂😂😂😂
the shifting i leanr in astronomy, its called parallax. thank you for sharing...
I was a tank commander we learned that in the Swiss army. Good old days!
Very interesting and useful. Accuracy depends on length of thumb, arm and distance between eyes !!
This is very useful for those who have problems judging distance. Thank you.
You can make this more accurate if you have some measurements taken. Take the distance from your outstretched thumb to your eyeballs and divide it by the distance between your eyes. So if your thumb is 50cm from your eyes, and your eyes are 5cm apart, the add a zero method will work as well as your ability to estimate that distance. If you have long arms or narrow eyes, that might be an underestimate. But those are the measurements to check if you want to eliminate as much error as possible.
Your videos are really great very informative and you're a very nice guy I've been subscribed to you for a while now few months since I found your videos but they're really great and this is Easter Sunday and I hope you have a happy holiday
Well, thumbs up for this handy video
Such an underrated channel!
Usually distance between your eyes is 10x shorter than your arm. That's why you add "0".
Trigonometry. ;)
yep, though for me it is 7 times, so sin(t)=1/7, and since is a small angle sin(t)~t, so x_far=x_sideways/sin(1/7)=7*x_sideways. though 10 is easier and its an estimation anyway
Great tip.. will try it on the golf course
Ovens dont always have predictable temperatures, you may not have a clock or thermometer, or your meat might be too cold, so go by yummy smell then check it, it shouldnt be rubbery when you poke it and if it is in a pan the juices should be clear. Bread is another one you go by smell first, check the colour, then knock it and it should sound more like a knock not a thud. Cakes by smell, then golden, then poke it with a thin knife and it will come out clean when it is baked. Tortillas will slip around on the comal when they are ready to be flipped, if they stick you need to wait.
Your best way of estimating the distance between the thumbs would have been with the approximate width of the path in the grass.
I've been an outdoorsman for decades. I can't believe I've never seen this method before! Thanks!!!
This video just radiatee pure joy. We couls tell you had a blast filming this hahaha 🎉
i guessed 280ft based on your camera view of your thumb, I'm impressed! Gonna show my cousins this
That is, it is based
on the proportion
between the interpupillary distance
and the length of the arm!
Loved it the way you explained.
Thumbs up
Legend. I remember a friend in the army telling me about this year's ago but didn't explain it as well as you thanks
Can’t wait to try this on the golf course….lol!!
This would be interesting for archery. Though I think a split-image telemeter would be much more accurate for a bowhunter.
Something like you postulate is precisely what we used to use bow hunting. Well for heavens sakes. I just went to google looking for an example of 'old fashioned mechanical bow hunting range finder' and there are none. I guess everybody tossed theirs when the new fangled lasers came out.
@@OvGraphics That's a pity, can't beat old technology that didn't need a battery.
@@musikSkoolAnd in the apocalypse, stringing a recurve is much simpler than a compound!
This could be handy when trying to adjust your field on a rifle scope, though I usually just focus.
I use the width of my little finger. It subtends an angle θ of about 1.5° (three Moon or Sun angular widths), where sinθ ≈ tanθ ≈ 0.025 or 1 in 40.
Rule of thumb was actually that By law you couldnt beat your wife with a stick thicker than your thumb.
00:47 I am a beginner in cartography and orienting myself in the terrain without tools.
So here's a question:
Is it 20 minutes per pound plus the 20 minutes (as in the same example with kilos), or without the "plus"? Thanks a lot in advance. Best regards, signed: Me.
I think you’ve missed the point of the video. I’m a chef and I’ve stuck my thumb at all the chickens in my kitchen and I’ve been able to work out that they’re around half a mile away from me, which is great, because now I’ve got a lot more space in the kitchen. The downside is I have to walk quite far to make any food.
20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes. In this instance metric measures confuse things. This (kitchen) rule of thumb is also used for brewing tea - 1 teaspoon per person and one for the pot. Not that many people use loose tea these days, although I guess it would also work with tea bags.
@@paulreeves8251 Thanks! I will make sure t try it out. The 1 tea bag / tea spoon per person plus 1 for the pot was always very confusing indeed.
Plus, the package instructions on Lipton tea are different in different language options (you can see the numbers for minutes to brew differ from language to language).
So testing every rule of thumb on your own, to train your inner measuring system, is a must.
As for the distance measuring example - if you know the horizontal distance between two objects, you can use this rule with very good results.
But, if it all is new to you, you will need quite a lot of practice to get a feel for the real distance between objects on the horizon.
Same goes for cooking and loose tea brewing, where practice makes cooks / tea masters able to measure ingredients and steeping times by the eye.
Rule of Thumb was that you couldn't beat your wife with a rod bigger than your thumb.
The military use all kinds off methods for judging distances, halving, doubling, bracketing, appearance method. Good skills to have.
Thanks for joining the conversation - I teach some military folk on my nav courses and they do seem to have their own way of doing things.
@@TheMapReadingCompany Its the mills that get me, the whole world uses degrees and they go with mills!
Cool , reminds me of my vavo who was in ww2 n had nifty tricks like he used his watch n the sun to find true north, so, w, e , to get back to camp wen he got lost in the woods getting branchez for firewood , im glad i subbed
Only really worthwhile at short distances as anything further away would be next to impossible to guess the distance between the two points
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.
Thank You Sir! Very interesting and I tried it in my home while watching your video! Pretty Good!
Cool. Just tried with a clock across the room I estimated 30cms so 3 meters away.
I had both eyes open and focused on the target so I could see both instances of my thumb.
I guess it's harder over larger distances.
is your thumb centered, like by your nose, or is it off to one side? So we are using the angle between your eyes and the height of your thumb to guestimate by rough triangulation.
It wouldn't make much difference, as long as you don't move your arm when you switch eyes
Got it, raise your thumb and close one eye then open it and close the other eye, estimate the distance between them and add zero, then take a tape measure and measure the distance.
Just kidding😅, thanks for the video
You cant have a youtube video without a troll in the comments section now can you.
Apreciate it.
Pace it out, then you know, plus you had something to occupy your mind while you walked or in my case ran. Failing that, use your GPS watch. The problem with these quaint methods is that we can always rationalise that they were reasonable as nobody goes along afterwards and checks.
At 3:17, the tape measure says "36 meters" and "90". What is 90? Not yards, not feet, not any metric unit. 🤔
At 3:17 the tape is showing 06, but I'm holding it upside down.
@@TheMapReadingCompany Right, the video shows the tape upside down, which means the tape actually says "36m 90". The "36m" means 36 meters, but what does "90" mean? 90 units of what? It's not feet, yards, or metric. 🤔
From the measuring tape at 3:17, *36* meters equals *90* "mystery units", therefore one "mystery unit" equals 400 millimeters or 15.74803 inches. Still no idea what it is. Maybe it's the word "go" instead of the number 90? 🙂
Seems like people with wide-set eyes and narrow-set eyes would get different readings, no? Still, you could calibrate it for your own body. The tricky part is knowing how far apart those two thumb points are.
Parallax, the first metod of measuring distances to the stars, ence "parsec", parallax of second of a degree, an old unit of measure used to measure distances in the Universe.
Was applied by measuring the angle in six months time interval to obtain a diferent point of view of 2 AU, 300 000 00 Km.
Of course they did not used the thumb :)
that's just like parallax method, I never thought it could be used so simply without any calculations
i just took a box of my ritalin medication on a day i was ironically off my meds, and did some trigonometry with Tangent and arctangent, and made 5 degree increments along the far edge of the box. basically i use the rectangular thin box like binoculars, but with the left or right edge (depending on which eye is open) zeroed in or level to my vision to mark 0 degrees. then the dots spread horizontally, say to my right, in 5 degree intervals. if i can see a desired point through a hole, then i know the angle it is right or left (i guess up and down works too, but then you might need to account for having flat ground, so i do everything horizontally instead of vertically, so the ground doesnt matter, just that i look exactly at the center of a target object. anyway, theres 5 layers, up to down on this side, so i actually have every degree, just they are arranged modulo 5...5 mod x has its own layer, so everything can fit neatly on that side. anyway, so long as i know the width between my 0 and center of my target or its distance, i then can know the one i dont know or dont know how to approximate. opp/tan x or adj*tan x, so my distance times tan x or approx the distance center to zero divided by the angle (aka tan angle) and yeah. if you dont like guessing that much, then you could walk perpendicular to the 0 and target and take a second measurement. then use the difference in degree and your sure knowledge of how far you walked to get a more precise measurement. just use a mechanical pencil to poke small holes in your box,
Straight away I guessed 80m but then had no idea how far apart your two thumbs were. Before you said 8 to 9m I was thinking... maybe 10 feet!
Nicely explained. Let me give you a thumbs up!
I give this video a thumbs up
Well for relatively nearby objects this method is almost exact because it is easier to estimate the distance between the finger. But I don't think it's very accurate for far away objects. Anyways it rule of thumb as you said so it gives an approximation.
No good for shifty looking criminals ( their eyes are always set too close together according to my mum) and what if your a cyclops ?🤔
tried this right after finishing the video with a 6 inch wide object and my thumb crossed the width of it, turns out my thumb was exactly 60 inches away from it. only part that makes things difficult is my left eye is about half an inch above my right so long distance is gonna take even more guess work. but yea, that method has a use
I dont think i will be in a situation to ever rely on this, but I think this is a cool fun fact just to know and guesstimate distances
Crying Soyjak: :NOOO YOU GOTTA USE THIS SEXTANT, COMPASS, WORLD MAP AND STARCHART TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!!!!!!"
🗿: "👍"
Rrr, thats what those hikers are doing along side the road they're measuring the distance between them ,starting point ,closing eye, then ,albeit that's it.
I'll wave passing.
And i gave you a thumb up for the pretty neat explanation 👍
I like this but if i was good at judging the horizontal distance i would go straight to judging how far away the campsite is 🤪❤️.
A good tip is using an analogue watch as a compass as long as you can see the sun. 👍❤️🇬🇧
You can use objects to gauge the distance between the two points - wall height, trees, gates, etc. It is much easier to judge shorter distances than long ones.
I agree about using the sun to get the direction - you can also use the stars, the moon, etc. Here is a video I made about this:
th-cam.com/video/M3Mnp5CyilA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=SzS9Nlf1i3jV-YjX
@@TheMapReadingCompany excellent, I'll have a look 👍
Faced my door and tried this, later measured to roughly ~1.5dm, which lines up with my estimation of ~1,5m from me to the door. I'll definitely try to remember this trick the next time I'm out and about.
Interesting. However, you should have added some sketches so that the presentation is clear.
Hmmm, I used this method on a 2ft sizeboard in my living room but it cam up at 12ft and not 20ft
I guessed is 75-80 meters, but I used to judging distance on even the city, and useful tips , with the rule of thumb .
If you tilt your head left or right depending on which eye your using you can get a much better idea. This is really cool actually.
The thumb is pretty wide. Do you measure from the middle of thumb 1 to to middle of thumb 2, the inside of thumb 1 to the inside thumb 2, or the outside of thumb 1 to the outside of thumb 2?
would this work on larger distances like to the nearest star?
no lol
I tried to estimate the distance to the stars with this. It got tricky.
A much longer arm (than yours) will move the thumb further from the eye, which in turn will reduce the gap between the 2 points (left eye and right eye). Then adding a zero (multiply by 10) will lead to a much shorter distance.
A much shorter arm brings the thumb closer to the eyes, which increases the gap between the 2 points, and so adding a zero leads to a mcuh longer distance.
To be "sure" of an accurate formula, each person would need to calibrate their own scale using a known distance. Applying the known distance to the gap between the left eye and right eye points the person would then be able to work out what they mutiply the gap by to get the distance.
the whole point of the rule of thumb is an estimate. To be sure of an accurate formula use a map ;)
Even with those variations between people, you will probably still be more accurate for most people than simply trying to judge by looking at it
@@Ronin-ke5wmthere is no reason an estimate shouldn't be made as accurately as possible. If it complicated the estimation process, sure. But this is just a one-time calibration, and doing that once makes a lot of sense if it improves your estimate by, say, 20%
👍 EXCELLENT - THANKS !
That is pretty cool! Caveman trig! Definitely accurate within a few percent. Close enough for cannon fire.
I wonder if this was first developed on the battle field, to help Judge the aiming of an arrow or cannon ball
Thank you, great tip