Burime dhe Trajnim

Measuring

1. All you need for this method is a piece of paper and a tape measure.

2. Fold a piece of paper in half so that it forms a triangle. If the paper is rectangular (not square), you'll have to make a rectangular sheet of paper into a square. Fold one corner over so it forms a triangle with the opposite side, then cut off the extra paper above the triangle. You should be left with the triangle you need. The triangle will have one right (90 degree) angle and two 45 degree angles.

3. Hold the triangle in front of one eye. Hold the square corner (the 90º right angle) and point the rest of the triangle toward you. One of the short sides should be horizontal (flat), and the other should be vertical (pointing straight up). You should be able to look up along the longest side by raising your eyes. The longest side, the one you'll be looking along, is called the hypotenuse of the triangle.

4. Move back from the tree until you can sight the top of the tree at the top tip of the triangle. Close one eye and use the other to look directly along the longest side of the triangle, until you see the exact top of the tree. You want to find the point where your line of sight follows the longest side of the triangle to the very top of the tree.

5. Mark this spot and measure the distance from it to the base of the tree. This distance is almost the full height of the tree. Add your own height to this, since you were looking at the tree from the height of your eyes off the ground. Now you have the full answer! To learn how this works, see the "Using a Clinometer or Transit" section. You don't need to do any calculations in this method, because there's a little trick: the tangent of a 45º angle (which you used) equals 1. The equation can be simplified to this: (Height of tree) / (distance from tree) = 1. Multiple each side by (distance from tree) and you get: Height of tree = distance from tree.