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How to Find the Height of an Instrument When the Benchmark Is Not Known?

Scientists, doctors or engineers need to make precise measurements with their tools. However, in some emergency situations, the benchmark for an instrument may not be known. In this case, if the user wants to find the height of the instrument, they must improvise.

Instructions

- 1
  Obtain the instrument that you are using to measure height. If it is not a measurement device such as a ruler, then there will be no benchmark.
- 2
  Find a device or length you can use as a new benchmark. For example, you are measuring the height of a door and you have a sheet of paper you know is 10 inches in height. Measure how many times the paper can fit in the doorway and sum the total to estimate the height of the door.
- 3
  Determine a percentage of a known height if you cannot find a correlation. For example, you are trying to measure a patient. The length of their bed is 6-feet long and they occupy about 90 percent of the bed. The estimated height is 5 feet 5 inches.

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