How To Measure One's Hand from Base to Tip in Terms of Eyeball Circumference

There's a problem I had been considering for some time that I believe to have finally resolved. I've always wanted to know how to determine the ratio of one's hand length to eyeball circumference. Far too few people know this detail about themselves, although they commonly go out of their way to determine their height or, say, blood type. And it's generally accepted that one can approximate the size of their heart by measuring their fist.

The answer came to me all at once, like a flash of inspiration. The result is this simple step-by-step procedure by which you can definitively determine the length of your hand with respect to your eyeball circumference:

1. Lift your eyelid up to just below your eyebrow (it doesn't matter whether left or right), using a needle and thread, make a stitch through both eyelid and eyebrow make at least 3 stitches, each about 6-8mm apart and then tie off the thread. This will ensure that your eyelid doesn't get in the way during the procedure. Have some antiseptic and cotton balls on hand to treat the punctures if there's any bleeding

2. Using your thumb and forefinger gently pinch your eyeball on the left and right sides. Don't squeeze too hard or you might flatten your eyeball, which could distort the circumference measurement.

3. Your thumb should be touching your eyeball just at the place where the corner of your cheekbone meets the eye cavity. Your forefinger is just between the bridge of your nose and eye socket on the other side. With a swift and firm motion rotate your hand inward. If you do this correctly, your eyeball should come out. You may want to grow your thumbnail to about 1-1.5 cm before performing this procedure, as this will provide more leverage and help you wedge the eyeball out of the socket.

4. Now that the eyeball has been extracted, you might notice that it's attached at the back to several messy blood vessels and nerves and such. You should be able to cut through all these with a snip from a good pair of kitchen shears. Make the cut as close to your face as possible, to avoid excess residuum from hanging out of the eyesocket.

5. (Optional) It's usually good practice to be sanitary. An open eye socket is at risk for infection, which is dangerous because of its proximity to the brain. Remember the cotton balls from before? After tucking the ends of the blood vessels and nerves back into the eye socket, stuff the empty cavity with cotton balls. The bleeding will stop within 3-4 hours. If more than 4 hours pass and bleeding persists, it is advisable to consult a physician.

6. Using a fine-tipped paint brush and dark ink, carefully paint a small dot on your eyeball. It doesn't matter where you place the dot, but the ink on the eyeball has to be sufficiently wet so that it will leave a mark when pressed against another surface.

7. Touch the eyeball to the base of your hand at the wrist. A small mark should appear. Lay your hand palm-down flat on a table, and slowly roll the eyeball down the length of your hand. Each time another mark appears, another circumference is added to your measurement.

8. There may be some leftover space between the last mark left by your eyeball and the end of your finger. Simply measure this length with a ruler and divide this measurement by the distance between two of the marks on your hand. This number (length of remainder after last mark over distance between to marks) will provide the decimal part of your reading.

...And you're done! You now know your hand length in terms of eyeball circumference. I was surprised to learn that my ratio was 3.14. I wasn't able to measure with enough accuracy to determine whether the ratio was exactly pi (that notoriously elusive geometric ratio), although I think it would be very interesting to see how close it actually comes using more precise measurement. I'd also like to know if there's a great degree of variance from person to person, or if this ratio is more or less the same for everyone. If you try it, please leave a comment and let me know what you find!