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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 ^^
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.
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.
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 using the "rule of thumb" one would be measuring "by the way the crow flies" or a straight line of sight, not being able to account for valleys or terrain variance that one might encounter getting from point A to point B. Interesting. With this bit of knowledge, you unlocked a question I wondered as a child some 40+ years ago, that being why old time photographers with the black cloth and flash pan would give a thumbs up to the person they were about to take a pic of before disappearing under the cloth on back if the camera, your use of the rule of thumb brought back that memory and gave the answer, he was measuring distance from camera to subject which Id assume would be the only way before adjustable focus was available to ensure the correct focal distance and a clear photo. Enjoyed your explanation on how to use rule if thumb. Thanks for the upload. Peace.
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
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.
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.
and you explained way better than other video's how they measure the distance (though more accurate) to other stars and galaxy's. I learned a cool approximation tool as well as the origin of "rule of thumb" ....it's only 10 in the am. I need to pace my new information. I thought I was gonna go the whole day without learning something new....now thats all jacked up. cheers
Isn't that the moon thing? Where we stretch out our thumb until it covers the moon and then we can ascertain certain 'flat' distances on a galaxial scale? Or is that just some warped memory of some other thing I learned years ago, like finding South in Australia by tracing a perpendicular line between the 'Two Pointers' of the Southern Cross and one down through the centre of the cross? Where the two lines meet, you drop an imaginary line and that's the direction of south...roughly.
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: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M3Mnp5CyilA.htmlsi=SzS9Nlf1i3jV-YjX
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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?
it's some weird phenomenon, I forget what it's called. When you haven't been thinking about stuff like this, a video like this easily passes your mind with no thought> But when you have been thinking about it, you feel like you've never seen this kind of video and thus it seems amazing that it would pop up now.
At one, no idea today, but back in the day which was the mid-1960's this exercise was part of a Boy Scout Merit Badges for Forestry and Orienteering... If one uses a measure stick, back then part of the Walking Sticky shaft, you could be all but spot on..... Often, the walking stick would be 6', 5'6" or 5", a known length of measurement with notochs to an inch for one foot...
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
Sounds plausible. your estimating distance by estimating another perspective angle. I suppose it could increase your accuracy in judging a shorter distance between your thumbs as opposed to between you and a distant point ahead of you.
this is amazing! apparently my thumbs are fatter than normal thumbs because it was off by a factor of about 15 pct. so if I push my arm all the way out and thumb forward rather than straight up it's perfect. I measured it this is great :)
...at one time in the past, a man wasn't allowed to "discipline" his wife with a switch any bigger than his thumb. Hence, "rule of thumb". Not an endorsement mind you. Just sayin. 🤔 But, there weren't any "Karen's" back then either. 🤐 😂
